Home > J. Lamar Worzel

Worzel had a long and notiable career as a research scientist and professor of oceanography. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and then followed Ewing to Columbia. Conducting annual research on many ships including the Vema set the stage for the rapid advances in marine geology and geophysics in the late 1940s and 1950s.

A Fellow of the American Geophysical Union

Known for his important contributions to underwater sound, underwater photography, and gravity meaurements at sea.

1 Career Highlights

• First camera designed to go to a depth of 3000 fathoms (5.5 km)(constructed by Ewing, George Vine and Worzel - 1939)
• Gravity specialist and Co-Chief Scientist and eventually Associate Director of at Lamont Geological Observatory (now known as Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO))
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)
• Director of the Marine Science Institute Geophysical Laboratory at Galveston, TX (1975-79)
• Vice-President of Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) (1978-79)
• President of PGI since 1974
• Principal Investigator of Drilling program on the Blake plateau region off Jacksonville, Florida (1965)

2 Author of:

• Propagation of Sound in the Ocean. [Three papers.] with Maurice Ewing & C.L Pekeris
• Gravity and Geodesy: 1. Gravity Investigations of the Subduction Zone
• Pendulum Gravity Measurements at Sea
• Tertiary Tectonics of Central Hispaniola and the Adjacent Caribbean Sea with John. W. Ladd

3 Funds established in his name:

• J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund - $l million that supports young scientists pursuing careers in geophysical oceanography at WHOI.
• Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor Emeritus of Geophysics at Columbia University in New York

1 External Links:

• Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Graduate Student Fellowship Program
• Ocean Bottom Seismograph
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