The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international fields within the Earth and space sciences. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas: atmospheric and ocean sciences; solid-Earth sciences; hydrologic sciences; and space sciences. The organization's headquarters is located on Florida Avenue in Washington, D.C.
Paleomagnetism is the study of prehistoric Earth's magnetic fields recorded in rocks, sediment, or archeological materials. Geophysicists who specialize in paleomagnetism are called paleomagnetists.
Allan Verne Cox 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 over a hundred scientific papers, and the author or editor of two books on plate tectonics. On January 27, 1987, Cox died in an apparent suicide.
Walter Heinrich Munk was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. Munk worked on a wide range of topics, including surface waves, geophysical implications of variations in the Earth's rotation, tides, internal waves, deep-ocean drilling into the sea floor, acoustical measurements of ocean properties, sea level rise, and climate change. His work won awards including the National Medal of Science, the Kyoto Prize, and induction to the French Legion of Honour.
Edward A. "Ted" Irving, was a British-Canadian geologist. He was a scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada. His studies of paleomagnetism provided the first physical evidence of the theory of continental drift. His efforts contributed to our understanding of how mountain ranges, climate, and life have changed over the past millions of years.
Natural remanent magnetization is the permanent magnetism of a rock or sediment. This preserves a record of the Earth's magnetic field at the time the mineral was laid down as sediment or crystallized in magma and also the tectonic movement of the rock over millions of years from its original position. Natural remanent magnetization forms the basis of paleomagnetism and magnetostratigraphy.
Victor Vacquier, Sr. was a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
Geomagnetic secular variation refers to changes in the Earth's magnetic field on time scales of about a year or more. These changes mostly reflect changes in the Earth's interior, while more rapid changes mostly originate in the ionosphere or magnetosphere.
George Edward Backus is an American geophysicist, best known for his work with J. Freeman Gilbert on inverse methods for geophysical data. He is also notably credited with advancing the dynamo theory on the origin of the Earth's magnetic field.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to geophysics:
Margaret Leinen is an American paleoceanographer and paleoclimatologist. In 2013, Leinen was appointed the 11th director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as the dean of the School of Marine Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. She founded the Climate Response Fund, a non-profit focused on enabling better understanding, regulation and responsible use of climate engineering research, and served as its president for a time. For two years, Leinen also worked as chief science officer for a startup company in green technology and climate change mitigation. Leinen has also served as the U.S. Department of State science envoy for the oceans to Latin America and the Pacific.
Kathryn Anne "Kathy" Whaler OBE FRSE FAGU is a professor of geophysics at the University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences, in the Research Institute of Earth and Planetary Science and is a member of the Solid Earth Geophysics and Natural Hazards Research Group.
Neil D. Opdyke was an American geologist.
Catherine L. Johnson is a planetary scientist known for her research on the magnetic fields of planets including Mercury, Venus, Earth and its moon, and Mars. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Bhamidipati Lakshmidhara Kanakadri Somayajulu (1937-2016) is an Indian geochemist and a CSIR Emeritus Scientist at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. He is known for his studies on ancient and contemporary marine processes and is an elected fellow of several science societies such as the National Academy of Sciences, India, Geological Society of India, Indian Geophysical Union, American Geophysical Union, European Association for Geochemistry, Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1978.
David Gubbins is a British former geophysicist concerned with the mechanism of the Earth's magnetic field and theoretical geophysics. He is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at Leeds University.
Mioara Mandea is Head "Science Coordination" Department, Strategy Directorate at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales. Mioara Mandea’s research has had a broader significance and a huge impact in the community. One of her accomplishments of incalculable importance is the assembling of the geomagnetic time series at Paris, opening the path to other long magnetic series as Munich and Bucharest and dedicated studies. Over her entire career, she has been focused on the geomagnetic field and its variations, using data derived from magnetic observatories and satellites participating in elaborating useful models, such as the IGRF series. With GRACEFUL, a Synergy project of the European Research Council in the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Mioara Mandea continues her precursory work related to the dynamical processes in Earth's fluid core seen by both magnetic and gravity variations.
Catherine G. Constable is an Australian Earth scientist who is a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Her research considers palaeo- and geo-magnetism. Constable was awarded the American Geophysical Union William Gilbert Award in 2013 and elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017.
Subir Kumar Banerjee is an Indian-American geophysicist, known for research on rock magnetism, palaeomagnetism, and environmental magnetism.
