August 7, 2023
Jason Morgan, the Physicist, was to Geology what Darwin, the Geologist, was to Biology – towering figures with probing, synthetic minds, who became synonymous with the paradigm shifts they engendered. Evolution, for Darwin, Plate tectonics, for Jason Morgan and the very few peers of his generation.
Entire books, tens of them, have been written about the history of plate tectonics (and its acceptance) and the crucial role of Morgan in it.
His early work contributed seminally to the study of Earth’s gravitational field, the interactions between static and dynamic force fields generated by density anomalies, and how these constrain Earth’s viscosity structure on a planetary scale.
We rarely anymore cite Newton for F=ma, or Einstein about E=mc^2, and we no longer need to cite Morgan’s early work on plate tectonics, which was, essentially, universally, accepted by the late 1960s, and now the stuff of school books and college texts.
Perhaps paradoxically, Morgan (Nature, 1971), which postulated an explanation for the origin of hotspots and volcanic island chains in the *interior* of plates (thus, not part of the original theory) as a feature of convection currents in the deep mantle, remains as relevant as ever. Cited, debated, argued over, and still the stuff of NSF grant proposals like I literally just submitted, two days after his death.
Jason was patient, and Jason was kind. Jason did not envy, he did not boast, and he was not proud. It was known that his name did not appear on half or more of the publications that were written out of his collaborations with students.
When you talked to Jason he would take long pauses, to formulate deep thoughts, fed from encyclopedic knowledge and profound insight.