In Pursuit of Understanding, a Career in Marine Geology
Moore, Theodore C.
2022-12
Citation
Moore, Theodore C. (2022). "In Pursuit of Understanding, a Career in Marine Geology." Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists 3(1): n/a-n/a.
Abstract
My 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.Plain Language SummaryI became interested in the mysteries of the marine world as a teenager, but it was in the Navy that my love of the oceans and my interest in the field of oceanography fully developed. In the early 1960s, after serving in the Navy, my continuing curiosity about the marine world led me to graduate studies at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This was an exciting time for the marine geosciences. New tools and techniques for ocean exploration were being developed and the theory of plate tectonics had just burst onto the scene. In the ensuing years I worked with outstanding researchers and climate modelers studying the climate at the time of maximum ice extent during the last ice age. This team effort greatly broadened my understanding of ice sheets, climate models and factors controlling climate change. The initiation of scientific ocean drilling also gave me the opportunity to cooperate with international groups of researchers studying oceans of the past. After 8 years working for Exxon, I returned to academic research, studying the depositional history of large lakes, and returning to my long-term interest in the tropical Pacific. In this latter area of study, I was finally able to answer some of the questions that had puzzled me since my graduate student days.Key PointsCuriosity about the marine environment and the history of the oceans was a potent force in my research careerWorking with other scientists having different areas of expertise broadened my understanding of processes in climate change and the marine environmentOpportunities in new programs afforded me the chance to work cooperatively and gain new insights into the history of climate and the aquatic environmentPublisher
Geological Society of America, Map and Chart Series Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
ISSN
2637-6989 2637-6989
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