Geophysics at Columbia University: Appointment of Prof. Maurice Ewing

Abstract

PROF. MAURICE EWING, associate professor of physics at Lehigh University, has been appointed associate professor of geophysics in the Department of Geology of Columbia University. Prof. Ewing is at present engaged in research for the U.S. Navy with the civilian rank of chief scientist, and will take up his new post at the end of the War. At Columbia, Prof. Ewing will direct graduate instruction in geophysics as part of a post-war programme of geological training and research, and will continue his investigations of the continental shelf and the ocean basins. In recent years, through the development of special equipment of his own invention, Prof. Ewing has made geophysical measurements, both from ships on the surface and from submarines, of the continental margin beneath the ocean along the Atlantic coast of North America. Through these studies it was found in 1935–38 that the slope of the outwashed sediments off the Atlantic Coast did not conform to the slope of the underlying rock floor. In war-time the experience gained from these studies has been of special value to the U.S. Navy Department, and through the co-operation of the Government Prof. Ewing has been enabled to devote all his time to geophysical research, working from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, at Woods Hole, Mass.