Allan V. Cox
| Allan Verne Cox | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 17, 1926 Santa Ana, California |
| Died | January 27, 1987 (aged 60) Palo Alto, California |
| Residence | United States |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | geomagnetism, rock magnetism |
| Institutions | US Geological Survey 1959–1962; Stanford University 1967–1987 |
| Alma mater | University of California Berkeley (PhD, 1959) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Verhoogen |
| Known for | geomagnetic reversals |
| Notable awards |
Vetlesen Prize (1970) Arthur L. Day Medal (1975) John Adam Fleming Medal |
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 a bicycle accident.
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. 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.
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.
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