Obituary: John Tuzo Wilson

John Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist: born Ottawa 24 October 1908; OBE 1946; Professor of Geophysics, University of Toronto 1946-74; Principal, Erindale College, University of Toronto, 1967-74; Director-General, Ontario Science Centre 1974-85; Chancellor, York University, Toronto 1983-87; married 1938 Isabel Dickson (two daughters); died Toronto 15 April 1993.

JOHN TUZO WILSON, the leading Canadian geophysicist, pioneered the study of plate tectonics and, through his lifelong enthusiastic support of earth science, brought geophysics to the fore both nationally and internationally.

Wilson's success in promoting geophysics was in part due to his naturally unorthodox approach and he often captivated audiences by doing the unexpected. Scorch marks on a sheet of paper carefully passed over a burning candle, for example, in his hands became the Pacific plate producing the Hawaiian Islands from a 'hot pot' in the mantle below. Instantly, a fundamental idea about plate tectonics was appreciated by everyone, regardless of background.

Wilson's career was as remarkable as one of his lectures. When he retired in 1974, after 28 years as Professor of Geophysics at the University of Toronto, he became Director-General of the Ontario Science Centre. There, he introduced the idea of 'hands-on' displays so that visitors could participate in science and feel the enjoyment of it in much the way he did himself. Science was thus transformed from a static display to a dynamic show which delighted both adults and children while they learnt often complex ideas. Not content with his local success, he developed the idea of mobile exhibits which brought science to people in distant parts of Ontario.

He retired a third time in 1983 and took up the position of Chancellor of York University, Toronto, a post he held until 1987.

Wilson enjoyed administrative challenges, especially big ones. In 1957, he was president of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the highest international scientific post in his field. Ten years later he became principal of Erindale College at the University of Toronto, which at that point existed only on paper, but had evolved, by the time he left it seven years later into a model of a modern university college.

Wilson's life was filled with adventure. While still in high school he accompanied geologists on summer field-trips. Mountains, which were so central to his later scientific career, were to be climbed as well as studied. In 1935, he made the first ascent of the 12,328ft Mount Hague, in Montana. The Wilson mountain range in Antarctica is named after him.

Wilson made expeditions to the Canadian North, first with the Geological Survey of Canada and, after service in the Second World War, as part of Exercise Musk-Ox, a military operation which he used to stimulate scientific research in the Arctic. In 1967, newspaper headlines reported that he sailed down the St Lawrence River from Belleville, Ontario, to Expo '67 in Montreal, in a Chinese junk which had been built for him in Hong Kong.

Wilson's education began with an unusual, but not surprising, twist. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto in 1926, he asked to study both physics and geology, a combination which did not then exist. A new degree in Geophysics was created and Wilson became its first graduate in Canada. His doctoral thesis at Princeton University, New Jersey, represented the start of his ideas on continental drift, which would mature some 30 years later as the subject of plate tectonics.

Wilson brought his sense of adventure to his scientific work and to his interaction with colleagues. His work was recognised through more than a dozen honorary degrees from other universities and many medals and awards from professional societies. Most noteworthy of these is the Vetlesen Prize, awarded to him by Columbia University in 1978 and regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the earth sciences.

John Tuzo Wilson's contributions to geophysics have been recognised in all the conventional ways. But his greatest achievement, perhaps, is his influence on his many students and colleagues who followed his work and continue to pursue the study of geophysics that he loved so much.