WILLIAM MAURICE EWING
(1906-1974)
W. Maurice ("Doc") Ewing was born in Lockney, Texas, on May 12, 1906. He
received a BA in physics and mathematics from Rice Institute in 1926, an MA in
1927, and a PhD in 1931.
Dr. Ewing's entire career was devoted to education and research. This included
valuable services as a consultant to the U.S. Government and to industry. He
began his teaching career while still a graduate student at Rice. He served
there as a Teaching Fellow from 1926 to 1929. While completing his dissertation,
from 1929 to 1930, he became an Instructor in Physics at the University of
Pittsburgh. From Pittsburgh he went to Lehigh University, where he served as
Instructor in Physics, 1930 to 1936, and as Assistant Professor from 1936 to
1940. At Lehigh he began his career as a teacher of geophysics. In 1940 he was
promoted to Associate Professor of geology at Lehigh and was granted a leave of
absence to become a Research Associate at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution. He remained at Woods Hole from 1940 to 1944, when he went to
Columbia University as Associate of Geology, from 1944 to 1947. He became
Professor of geology in 1947 and in 1959 he was named Higgins Professor of
Geology. Largely through Dr. Ewing's efforts, Columbia received gifts to
establish and endow the Lamont Geological Observatory (later to become the
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory). He was the first Director of the
Observatory, serving from its founding in 1949 until he came to Texas in 1972.
In 1972, Ewing and a number of his associates came to the UT Medical Branch at
Galveston to join the new Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Marine
Biomedical Institute. He was also appointed as a Professor in the Department of
Geology at UT-Austin. He served on graduate student committees, but, because his
office and lab were in Galveston, he did no classroom teaching.
Dr. Ewing’s greatest love was the study of the character, structure,
composition, and origin of ocean basins. For this task he used reflection and
refraction seismology, gravity, heat flow, magnetic observations, and sediment
samples. Among his contributions are the discovery of the Sigsbee salt-cored
knolls in the Gulf of Mexico; the SOFAR channel, a continuous layer in the ocean
where sound energy is trapped by focussing, thus providing a mechanism for
long-range communications.; invented and encouraged the use of the piston corer
and deep-sea camera; and collaborated on the invention of a long-period
seismograph that helped define the velocity structure of the Earth’s outer
layers.
Throughout his career of nearly fifty years of teaching and research Dr. Ewing
was deeply involved in the work of his students and associates. This is
strikingly illustrated by the appended bibliography of more than 350 papers, of
which he was author or co-author, a scant two dozen list Ewing as the sole
author. Over one hundred and thirty co-authors are listed most of whom were
among the 200-plus graduate students with whom he worked. They represent a
substantial part of theWho's Who in Geophysics. He took more pride in their
achievements than almost anything else.
Dr. Ewing was bubbling over with ideas and concepts and wanted each of them to
be tried out immediately, exhausting his students with the urgency of getting
the equipment built or the research complete without delay. Yet no one could
complain, because he worked harder and longer than anyone around him. His
"vacation" trips inevitably included three or four business contacts each day.
On one occasion his wife convinced him to spend a week resting at a small lake
in the woods where there was no phone service. He later told one of his
colleagues that the first day he was restless, the second he was uneasy, and the
third he packed up and returned to the laboratory.
Maurice Ewing was chief scientist at sea on more than fifty cruises. At such he
would rarely rest more than three or four hours before he had to return to the
deck to see that all was going well. He rarely assigned a particular task to
anyone, but preferred to describe the opportunity in such glowing terms that the
subordinate would volunteer to carry it out. He frequently started a project and
turned it over to someone to carry out. He would then leave it to the latter
unless he was specifically asked for help.
Ewing had a very well developed sense of humor for everyday affairs, and could
always top anyone's story. However, he would not tolerate any humor in his work,
pointing out that many serious errors or omissions resulted from "humorous"
statements or events, which were allowed to distract people from their work.
Maurice Ewing was unwilling to dilute his efforts or waste time on things
outside the mainstream of his interests. Therefore, he was not a "joiner" and
was an active member of only about half dozen national scientific societies,
including the National Academy of Sciences. He was an honorary member or fellow,
or corresponding member, of a greater number of such societies in the U.S. and
seven foreign countries.
Dr. Ewing's outstanding contributions to geophysics were recognized by the
conferring of eleven honorary degrees by universities in the United States and
four foreign countries. He was also awarded fifteen medals and prizes including
the National Medal of Science, the Vetlsen Award of Columbia University, the
Navy's Distinguished Service A ward, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society, the Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Science, the Medal of
Honor from Rice University, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of
London, the Day Medal and Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America,
the Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union and the Sidney Powers Medal of
the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Maurice Ewing died in Galveston, Texas, on May 4, 1974, at the age of 67.
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