John Tuzo Wilson (1908 - 1993)

• born on October 24, 1908, in Ottawa, Ontario
• studied geophysics at the University of Toronto, the first student in Canada to take such a course
• did graduate work at Cambridge and Princeton, received a doctorate in geology in 1936
• worked for the Geological Survey of Canada
• spent seven years in the army
• taught at the University of Toronto from 1946 to 1974
• during the 1960's he refined and championed the theory of plate tectonics, which was then held in disrepute
• introduced the idea of "hot spots" which remain stationary under the moving plates and produce chains of islands like Hawaii and Japan
• first to identify "transform faults" which link trenches (where the plates collide) and rifts (where the plates pull apart)
• first non-American president of the American Geophysical Union, which altered its rules to allow his election
• in 1974 became the director of the Ontario Science Center
• further reading:
  • A Passion to Know: 20 Profiles in Science, Allen Hammond ed., (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1984)
  • Continental Drift: The Evolution of a Concept, Ursula B. Marvin, (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C., 1973)
  • The Deep Sea Drilling Project After Ten Years, William A. Nierenberg, (American Scientist, January/February 1978)
  • Magnetic Anomalies Over a Young Oceanic Ridge off Vancouver Island, F. J. Vine and J. Tuzo Wilson, (Science, October 22, 1965)

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