Local heroes (sung and unsung) of the study of earth behaviour in the last century
DON TARLING, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Plymouth
Date/Time: 23rd October 2008, 17:30
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Don Tarling, currently Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of Plymouth, spent much of his career in the Department of Geophysics & Planetary Physics at Newcastle University. He held various temporary and then permanent posts between 1963 and 1986, supervising over 30 PhD and even more MSc students. He specialised in palaeomagnetism, the magnetic properties of rocks, but also gave lectures on Pure and Applied Geophysics in the Geology Department, and on Geology within the Geophysics postgraduate and undergraduate courses. He was also part-time lecture at the University of Durham (Archaeology & Geophysics).
The talk will explain the scientific contributions of three local ‘heroes’ – Arthur Holmes, Sir Harold Jeffreys and Keith Runcorn. All three were major internationally important figures in the 20th century and led to much of our current understanding of how the Earth behaves. Mention will be made of some of the “unsung” heroes also associated with the Department of Geophysics. The impossible task of placing the recognized heroes in some form of order will then be attempted.