College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

Roger Larson
1965 BS
Geology
Awarded posthumously

Roger Larson was a world-renowned Marine Geophysicist and an authority on using marine magnetic anomaly data to reconstruct the history of ocean basins. Some of his major accomplishments include: relating the opening history of the Gulf of California to the San Andreas Fault, unraveling the complicated early history of the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins, successful drilling into the oldest oceanic crust in the Pacific, discovering and describing the complex formation of oceanic microplates, and identifying periods of excessive world-wide volcanism he termed "Superplumes." His Bedrock Geology Map of the World can be seen in nearly every Geology and Earth Science department.

His contribution to research has been widely recognized. The long-time faculty member at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island was elected a Fellow to both the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union. He received the prestigious Newcomb-Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the paper that announced the discovery of the now famous “black smoker” hydrothermal vents on the crest of the East Pacific Rise. He had also been chair of science planning for the Ocean Drilling Project, one of the largest international Earth science projects ever undertaken.

He earned his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Roger Larson died May 4, 2006.

Roger Larson

Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111. Published by: University Relations, online@iastate.edu. Copyright © 1995-2004, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

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College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Ames, Iowa 50011-1302

General Information: (515) 294-7740

Academic Advising: (515) 294-4831

Email: las@iastate.edu

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Bret Larwick - Director of Technology

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