Richard Doell

Richard Rayman Doell ( born June 28, 1923 in Oakland, California, † March 6, 2008 in Point Richmond, California ) was an American geophysicist who created the time scale of reversals of the geomagnetic field with Allan V. Cox, and Brent Dalrymple, what with early evidence of plate tectonics mid-1960s was used by Frederick Vine and Drummond Hoyle Matthews.

Doell grew up in Carpinteria, California and studied from 1940 to 1943 at the University of California, Los Angeles Geology and after military service in the infantry in World War II at the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor 's degree in geology in 1952 and a doctorate Geophysics in 1955. Having taught at the University of Toronto ( Lecturer in Geophysics 1955/56 ) and from 1956 to 1958 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( Assistant Professor ), he went in 1959 to the United States Geological Survey (USGS ) in Menlo Park. There, his collaboration with Allan Cox and later Brent Dalrymple began on the paleomagnetism in rocks and the determination of the timing of the reversals of the geomagnetic field. From 1967 to 1971 he headed the department of Theoretical Geophysics at the USGS. In 1978 he went with the USGS to retire. In retirement he devoted himself sailing trips to Alaska, Polynesia and northern Europe and married in 1984.

In 1970 he received the Vetlesen price. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1969 ) and president of the Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Section of the American Geophysical Union 1968 to 1970.

Writings

• With Cox, Dalrymple reversals of the earth 's magnetic field, Scientific American, Volume 216, 1967