John G. Ramsay

John Graham Ramsay was a British structural geologist born June 17, 1931, in Edmonton, London, who died January 12, 2021, in Zurich, Switzerland, and who worked at Imperial College London from 1957 to 1973, becoming professor of structural geology there in 1966, then at the University of Leeds from 1973 to 1976 as professor and department head, and then at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich from 1976 to 1992, retiring as professor emeritus. He pioneered structural geology through investigation of rock deformation patterns, particularly in the Scottish Highlands, comparing mechanical models for the origin of geological structures with field observations, and conducted extensive fieldwork in the Barberton greenstone belt, the East African rift, the Alps, and the Caledonian belt; he authored the influential 1967 book Folding and Fracturing of Rocks among four books. He received the Bigsby Medal in 1973, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1973, received the Wollaston Medal in 1986 and the Arthur Holmes Medal in 1992, and was appointed CBE in 1992.