In Pursuit of Understanding, a Career in Marine Geology

Abstract

AbstractMy interest in the oceans first developed when I was a teenager, but I did not actually go to sea until I was in the U.S. Navy. With that experience, I developed a love of the oceans and an interest in oceanography. My graduate training was a time when oceanography and marine geology were blossoming with new ideas and new tools to explore the ocean world. The theory of plate tectonics was becoming widely accepted and scientific ocean drilling was just starting. My thesis study area was in the tropical Pacific. Soon after receiving my PhD, I sailed on Deep Sea Drilling Project Leg 8, which drilled the first transect across the Pacific equator. The nature of the sediments there posed many scientific questions that continued to intrigue me. Some of these questions remained unanswered for a long time. Early in my career I was fortunate to work with a group of specialists from outside my field of expertise to study the global climate during the last glacial maximum (the CLIMAP Project). Subsequently, I spent 8 years working in the oil industry. This experience taught me the skills of interpreting seismic reflection records that help unravel the history of sediment deposition. When I returned to academia, these skills proved particularly useful in studies of large lakes. Late in my career, I returned to studies of the tropical Pacific, where new tools and techniques helped answer some of my unanswered questions.