Partner
Clyde Wahrhaftig
Queer Places:
Tunitas Creek Rd, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
University of California, Berkeley, CA
Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Allan
Verne Cox (December 17, 1926 – January 27, 1987) was an American geophysicist.
His work on dating geomagnetic reversals, with Richard Doell and Brent
Dalrymple, made a major contribution to the theory of plate tectonics. Allan
Cox won numerous awards, including the prestigious Vetlesen Prize, and was the
president of the American Geophysical Union. He was the author of two books on
plate tectonics and over a hundred scientific papers. On January 27, 1987, Cox
died in an apparent suicide.
Cox began studying chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.
However, after a single quarter he left school and spent three years in the
United States Merchant Marine. He returned to Berkeley, but had so little
interest in chemistry that his grades were too low to avoid being drafted into
the United States Army. When he returned, he switched his major to geology.
His research career in geology began in 1950 when he took a position as a
field assistant to
Clyde Wahrhaftig studying glaciation in the Alaska Range; the pair later
had a long romantic relationship.[1][2]
For his graduate research at the University of California, Berkeley, Cox
concentrated on rock magnetism with John Verhoogen as his supervisor.
Verhoogen was one of the few geologists of the time who took the hypothesis of
continental drift seriously. His stance made a deep impression on Cox.[3]
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1959, Cox joined the United States Geological
Survey in Menlo Park, California. There he collaborated with another
geophysicist, Richard Doell, on rock magnetism. The two were particularly
interested in geomagnetic reversals. At the time, very little was known about
the timing of reversals. The rock specimens they collected were too young (a
few millions of years) to date accurately until the potassium-argon dating
method was developed. Cox and Doell arranged for the USGS to hire Brent
Dalrymple, a graduate from Berkeley with expertise in this method. The three
succeeded in creating the first geomagnetic polarity time scale. This work
made possible the first test, by Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews, of the
seafloor spreading hypothesis.[3]
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
University of California, Berkeley, CA
Cox was hired as a professor at Stanford University in 1967. He became Dean
of the School of Earth Sciences in 1979 and demonstrated a talent for
administration that was widely acknowledged by his colleagues.[3]
Cox died in a bicycle accident, colliding with a large redwood tree after
falling off a cliff on Tunitas Creek road, in the mountains Northwest of
Stanford University. The San Mateo County coroner concluded that Cox's death
was a suicide.[4]
Cox was normally very safety conscious and had exceptionally not worn a helmet
on that day. Cox's death came five days after he learned he was going to be
charged with child molestation. Cox allegedly had repeatedly molested the
teenager son of one of his graduate students. Cox had told the father of the
molested child that he would kill himself if the allegations were reported to
the police.[5]
Following Cox's death, no charge came on.
Cox was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.[3]
In 1969 the American Geophysical Union awarded him the John Adam Fleming medal
for research in geomagnetism;.[6]
In 1970 he was awarded the prestigious Vetlesen Prize, along with G. Brent
Dalrymple, Richard Doell and S. Keith Runcorn, for contributions to geology
and geophysics.[7]
In 1976 the Geological Society of America awarded him the Arthur L. Day Medal
for the application of physics and chemistry to the solution of geologic
problems.[8]
He was the president of the American Geophysical Union from 1978 to 1980.[9]
In 1984 the United States National Academy of Sciences awarded him the Arthur
L. Day Prize and Lectureship.
After his death, a number of memorials to him were created. The American
Geophysical Union had the annual Allan Cox Lecture from 1998 to 2001; this
lecture was replaced by the Edward Bullard lecture.[10]
The Geological Society of America (Geophysics Division) selects a student each
year for the Allan V. Cox Student Research Award;[11]
and Stanford University awards the Allan Cox Medal for Faculty Excellence
Fostering Undergraduate Research.[12]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_V._Cox