W. Jason Morgan

W. Jason Morgan ( William Jason Morgan, born October 10, 1935 in Savannah, Georgia, USA) is an American geophysicist who has made pioneering contributions to plate tectonics and geodynamics. He is Emeritus Knox Taylor Professor of Geology and professor of geosciences at Princeton University.

CV and main scientific achievements

After receiving his Bachelor of Science in Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1957, he moved to Princeton University, where he earned his doctorate at Bob thickness 1964. He was then transferred directly to the faculty of the University.

His first significant, in the late 1960s of advance contribution was, to put the magnetic anomalies of alternating polarity, which has the ocean floor on either side of a mid-ocean ridge in relation to sea floor spreading and plate tectonics.

Since 1971, followed by the development of the plume model of John Tuzo Wilson, which postulates the existence of approximately cylindrical convective Aufströme in the mantle to explain hotspots. Morgan turned the concept initially only in Hawaii and thus explained the increasing with increasing distance from the present age of hotspot seamounts of the Hawaiian - Emperor seamount chain, but the concept has since been transferred from Morgan and numerous other scientists in many other hotspots.

For his work, Morgan has received numerous awards, including the Alfred Wegener Medal of the European Union of Geosciences (1983 ), the Maurice Ewing Award of the American Geophysical Union (1987 ), the Japan Prize (1990 ), the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London (1994) and the National Medal of Science of the USA ( 2002).

Important publications

  • WJ Morgan: Rises, Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal Blocks. In: Journal of Geophysical Research. Belt 73, 1968, p 1959
  • WJ Morgan: Convection plumes in the lower mantle. In: Nature. Volume 230, 1971, p 42-43
  • Geophysicists
  • Support of the Japan Prize
  • Member of the Académie des sciences
  • Americans
  • Born in 1935
  • Man
  • University teachers ( Princeton University)
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