Solid Earth Geophysics

Don L. Anderson is Professor of Geophysics in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech. He received his B.S. in Geology and Geophysics from R.P.I. in 1955 and his Ph.D. in Geophysics and Mathematics from Caltech in 1962. He served with Chevron Oil Company, the Air Force Cambridge Research Center and the Arctic Institute of North America from 1955 to 1958. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972, the National Academy of Sciences in 1982 and the American Philosophical Society in 1990. He has received the Emil Wiechert Medal of the German Geophysical Society, the Arthur L. Day Gold Medal of the Geological Society of America and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Crafoord Prize at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and the National Medal of Science. He is Past President of the American Geophysical Union.

Don L. Anderson is interested in the origin, evolution, structure and composition of Earth and other planets. His work integrates seismological, solid state physics, geochemical and petrological data. He was Director of the Seismological Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology from 1967-1989.

Additional Information

Don L. Anderson's book, Theory of the Earth, is available on the web at
http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechBOOK:1989.001

Current information about mantle plumes and mantle dynamics is available at www.mantleplumes.org

Additional information related to Don Anderson's work can be found at
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=WOT3