Robert D. Hatcher

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Robert Dean Hatcher Jr. (born October 22, 1940, in Madison, Tennessee) [1] is an American structural geologist, known as one of the world's leading experts on the geology of the southern and central Appalachians. [2]

Contents

Biography

Hatcher attended high school at Springfield, Ohio's Northwestern High School, where he graduated in 1957. [2] At Vanderbilt University, he graduated in 1961 with a B.A. (major in geology and chemistry, minor in mathematics) and in 1962 with a M.S. (major in geology, minor in chemistry). In 1965 he received a Ph.D. in structural geology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) [3] with thesis supervised by George David Swingle (1922–1973). [4] In 1965 Hatcher married Diana Simpson. [5] After about one year as an employee of the Humble Oil and Refining Company (now merged into ExxonMobil), he was appointed an assistant professor at Clemson University. There he was promoted to full professor and taught geology and mineralogy from 1966 to 1979. He and his family in 1978 moved to Tallahassee, Florida, where he was appointed a professor of geology at Florida State University and in 1980 moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he was a professor until 1988 at the University of South Carolina. In 1986 he returned to Tennessee, where he accepted a joint appointment at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as Distinguished Scientist and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In 2000 he terminated his position at ORNL but continued as professor at UTK [3] until he retired as professor emeritus in 2018. [6] From 1981 to 1988 Hatcher was the co-editor-in-chief, with William Andrew Thomas (1936–2022), of the Geological Society of America Bulletin . [3] [7]

Hatcher has been concerned about geological aspects of nuclear waste disposal and nuclear reactor safety. For disposal of radioactive waste, he served from 1984 to 1986 as science adviser to South Carolina governor Richard Riley. [2] Hatcher served from 1990 to 1996 on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Board on Radioactive Waste Management and from 1993 to 1996 on a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Federal Advisory Committee on reactor safety. [3]

Research

Hatcher's research involves fieldwork more than theory. Most of his research is interdisciplinary, combining wide knowledge from the geosciences. The goal of much of his research is the better understand the evolution of continental crust, by means of studying mountain chains and mature crust. [6] His research on structural geology has focused on "large faults, mountain chains, formation and breakup of supercontinents, and neotectonics." [8] He is the author or co-author of mmore than 200 scientific publications and the co-author or co-editor of several books. [9] Although he has been mostly concerned with the Appalachians, he has several times visited the North American Cordillera in Canada and the US, the Caledonides in the U.K. and Scandinavia, the Alps, Morocco's High Atlas and Meseta, the Tatra Mountains, and the Southern Andes in Argentina. He has also done smaller amounts of fieldwork in China's Qinling (Qin Mountains), the Olkhon region in Siberia, the Mexican Cordillera, and several other regions. [8]

Beginning in the 1970s, he was a leader in the plate tectonic reassessment of the tectonics of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians using terrane analysis. The reassessment was motivated by the search for oil and gas caused by the oil crisis in the 1970s. [2] With Jack E. Oliver, Sidney Kaufman (1908–2008), [10] and other colleagues, he used COCORP seismic-reflection profiling to investigate a seismic transversal in the southern Appalachians. They discovered that the Blue Ridge Mountains formed a 200 km long tectonic blanket similar to that observed in the Alps. [11] His geological map of the Appalachians was published in 1990 and replaced that of Harold Williams. With Harold Williams he wrote the important paper Suspect terranes and accretionary history of the Appalachian orogen published in 1982 in the journal Geology. [2] [12]

For many years, Hatcher wanted to do fieldwork related to earthquakes that do not occur on plate boundaries. In 2008 Hatcher was part of a group of geoscientists who received funding from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to investigate the paleoseismology of the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone. This seismic zone is the second most active in the eastern USA — the New Madrid Seismic Zone being the most active. In 2012 he and his colleagues "found a thrust fault east of Knoxville that displaced bedrock for about one meter over Quaternary river sediment." [3]

He was instrumental in the planned Appalachian Deep Hole Project (ADCOH), which was proposed for deep drilling through the overthrust of the Blue Ridge Mountains into underlying sedimentary rocks. Although the project was eventually cancelled, preliminary work on the project brought important insights into the tectonics of the Appalachians and was published in a report. [2] [13]

Hatcher has been the leader or co-leader of more than 40 field trips for professional societies and meetings [9] and is the author or co-author of numerous field trip guidebooks. [14] He and his colleagues have done research on "crustal-scale faults, large crystalline thrust sheets, lithotectonic terranes, geophysics, stratigraphy, and paleoseismicity." [9]

Awards and honors

In 1989 Hatcher was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) and the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). [15] He was in 1993 the president of the GSA and in 1996 the president of the AGI. [3] From the GSA, he received in 1988 the GSA Distinguished Service Award, in 2006 the Penrose Medal, [15] and in 2020 the Florence Bascom Geologic Mapping Award. [16] He received in 1997 from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) the I. C. White Award and in 2001 from the AAPG's Eastern Section the John T. Galey Award. The AGI awarded him in 2006 the Ian Campbell Medal [15] and in 2014 the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal. [17] Among other honors and awards, he was made in 1998 an honorary citizen of West Virginia by that state's governor [15] (Cecil H. Underwood).

Selected publications

Articles

Books

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pannotia</span> Hypothesized Neoproterozoic supercontinent

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acadian orogeny</span> North American orogeny

The Acadian orogeny is a long-lasting mountain building event which began in the Middle Devonian, reaching a climax in the Late Devonian. It was active for approximately 50 million years, beginning roughly around 375 million years ago (Ma), with deformational, plutonic, and metamorphic events extending into the early Mississippian. The Acadian orogeny is the third of the four orogenies that formed the Appalachian Mountains and subsequent basin. The preceding orogenies consisted of the Grenville and Taconic orogenies, which followed a rift/drift stage in the Neoproterozoic. The Acadian orogeny involved the collision of a series of Avalonian continental fragments with the Laurasian continent. Geographically, the Acadian orogeny extended from the Canadian Maritime provinces migrating in a southwesterly direction toward Alabama. However, the northern Appalachian region, from New England northeastward into Gaspé region of Canada, was the most greatly affected region by the collision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taconic orogeny</span> Mountain-building period that affected most of New England

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The Grenville orogeny was a long-lived Mesoproterozoic mountain-building event associated with the assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia. Its record is a prominent orogenic belt which spans a significant portion of the North American continent, from Labrador to Mexico, as well as to Scotland.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolina terrane</span> Exotic terrane from central Georgia to central Virginia in the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Famatinian orogeny</span> Paleozoic geological event in South America

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mazatzal orogeny</span> Mountain-building event in North America

The Mazatzal orogeny was an orogenic event in what is now the Southwestern United States from 1650 to 1600 Mya in the Statherian Period of the Paleoproterozoic. Preserved in the rocks of New Mexico and Arizona, it is interpreted as the collision of the 1700-1600 Mya age Mazatzal island arc terrane with the proto-North American continent. This was the second in a series of orogenies within a long-lived convergent boundary along southern Laurentia that ended with the ca. 1200–1000 Mya Grenville orogeny during the final assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia, which ended an 800-million-year episode of convergent boundary tectonism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yavapai orogeny</span> Mountain building event 1.7 billion years ago in the southwestern United States

The Yavapai orogeny was an orogenic (mountain-building) event in what is now the Southwestern United States that occurred between 1710 and 1680 million years ago (Mya), in the Statherian Period of the Paleoproterozoic. Recorded in the rocks of New Mexico and Arizona, it is interpreted as the collision of the 1800-1700 Mya age Yavapai island arc terrane with the proto-North American continent. This was the first in a series of orogenies within a long-lived convergent boundary along southern Laurentia that ended with the ca. 1200–1000 Mya Grenville orogeny during the final assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia, which ended an 800-million-year episode of convergent boundary tectonism.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concord Gabbro-Syenite Complex</span> Geologic formation in North Carolina

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References

  1. biographical information American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2004
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gates, Alexander (October 2019). A to Z of Earth Scientists, Updated Edition. Infobase Holdings. pp. 101–103. ISBN   978-1-4381-8328-2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Background | Robert D. Hatcher, Jr". University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 16 March 2016.
  4. Hatcher Jr., Robert Dean (1965). "Structure of the Northern Portion of the Dumplin Valley Fault Zone in East Tennessee". Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange (TRACE), University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Ph.D. dissertation{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  5. "2006 Penrose Medal Presented to Robert D. Hatcher Jr.; Citation by Michael W. Higgins; Response by Robert D. Hatcher Jr". GSA Medals & Awards, Geological Society of America - 2006 Penrose Medal - Citation & Response.
  6. 1 2 "Presentation The Channeled Scablands of the Northwestern US — Geologic Puzzle or Formation by Unique Processes (with Abstract & Biography) by Dr. Robert D. Hatcher, Jr". Eastern Tennessee Geological Society. May 13, 2024.
  7. "Dr. William Andrew Thomas of Tuscaloosa | 1936 - 2022 | Obituary". Tuscaloosa Memorial Park and Chapel.
  8. 1 2 "Large Faults, Mountain Chains, Formation and Breakup of Supercontinents, and Neotectonics | Robert D. Hatcher, Jr". University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
  9. 1 2 3 "2018 Duncan Heron Lifetime Achievement Award | Robert "Bob" D. Hatcher". Carolina Geological Society.
  10. Abram, Lynwood (November 1, 2008). "Obituary. Sidney Kaufman, charted the way for offshore drilling". Houston Chronicle.
  11. Cook, Frederick A.; Albaugh, Dennis S.; Brown, Larry D.; Kaufman, Sidney; Oliver, Jack E.; Hatcher Jr., Robert D. (1979). "Thin-skinned tectonics in the crystalline southern Appalachians; COCORP seismic-reflection profiling of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont". Geology. 7 (12): 563–567. Bibcode:1979Geo.....7..563C. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1979)7<563:TTITCS>2.0.CO;2. (over 600 citations)
  12. Williams, Harold; Hatcher Jr., Robert D. (1982). "Suspect terranes and accretionary history of the Appalachian orogen". Geology. 10 (10): 530–536. Bibcode:1982Geo....10..530W. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1982)10<530:STAAHO>2.0.CO;2. (over 450 citations)
  13. Williams, R.T.; Hatcher, R.D.; Coruh, C.; Costain, J.K.; Zoback, M.D.; Anderson, R.N.; Diebold, J.B.; Phinney, R.A. (1987). "The southern Appalachian ultradeep scientific drill hole: Progress of site location investigations and other recent developments". In Behr, Hans-Jürgen; Stehl, Francis G.; Vidal, Helmuth (eds.). Observation of the Continental Crust through Drilling II: Proceedings of the International Symposium held in Seeheim-Jugenheim, October 3–6, 1985. Exploration of the Deep Continental Crust. Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 44–55. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-45616-9_7. ISBN   978-3-642-45618-3.
  14. "Field Trips | Robert D. Hatcher, Jr". University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 16 March 2016.
  15. 1 2 3 4 "Robert D. Hatcher, Jr. | Honors & Awards". University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
  16. "2020 GSA Florence Bascom Geologic Mapping Award Presented to Robert D. Hatcher, Jr". Geological Society of America.
  17. "Dr. Robert D. Hatcher Jr. awarded the 2014 AGI/AGIF Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal" (PDF). American Geosciences Institute.