Warren B. Hamilton

Warren B. Hamilton (born 13 May 1925, in Los Angeles) is an American geologist known for integrating observed geology and geophysics into planetary-scale syntheses describing the dynamic and petrologic evolution of Earth’s crust and mantle. His primary career (1952–1995) was as a research scientist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in geologic, then geophysical, branches. After retirement, he became a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Department of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines (CSM). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a holder of the Penrose Medal, highest honor of the Geological Society of America (GSA). Hamilton served in the US Navy from 1943 to 1946, completed a Bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in a Navy training program in 1945, and was a commissioned officer on the aircraft carrier USS Tarawa. After returning to civilian life, he earned an MSc in Geology from the University of Southern California in 1949, and a PhD in Geology from UCLA in 1951. He married Alicita V. Koenig (1926–2015) in 1947.

Following a year, 1951–1952, teaching at the University of Oklahoma, Hamilton began his principal career as a research scientist with the USGS in Denver (1952–1995). Early projects included field and laboratory work in the Sierra Nevada batholith, the Idaho batholith and what later became known as accreted terranes west of it, metamorphic rocks of east Tennessee, a major crustal-extension earthquake in Montana, and extreme deformation of cratonic strata in southeast California.

Hamilton led a two-man field party in Antarctica (October 1958–January 1959) for the International Geophysical Year, and launched a new understanding of Antarctica. He was the first to apply the name trans-Antarctic Mountains (two years later, formalized as Transantarctic Mountains) to that 3,500 km range. Hamilton recognized that a large sector of this range contained distinctive granitic rocks like South Australia’s Adelaide orogenic belt. Associated fossils of diverse ages in Antarctica, Australia, and southernmost Africa further linked these continents, and supported then-radical explanations of continental drift. Before traveling to Antarctica, Hamilton was what he later described as a “closet drifter,” aware that Southern Hemisphere geology provided powerful evidence favoring continental drift. He returned to Antarctica for fieldwork in 1963 and 1964 in other parts of the Transantarctic Mountains, including those once continuous with other Australian tracts. He also investigated in the field evidence for drift in Australia and South Africa, integrating his work with that of other researchers to show how Antarctica and other Gondwana continents had drifted apart.

...
Wikipedia