Xavier Le Pichon

Xavier Le Pichon was a French geophysicist who lived from 1937 to 2025, known for his comprehensive 1968 model of plate tectonics, which helped create the field, synthesizing existing kinematic concepts with extensive datasets to show that plate tectonics could accurately explain ocean basin evolution. He was a professor at the College de France, holding the Chair of Geodynamics from 1986 to 2008. He received the CNRS Silver Medal in 1973, the Maurice Ewing Medal in 1984, the Japan Prize in 1990 and the Balzan Prize in 2002, and was a member of the French Academy of Sciences from 1985 and a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences from 1995. He received the Wollaston Medal in 1991. He is also live on this family own earth atlas as a scientist entity for the same geophysics work, a legitimate width mint of the same historically significant figure rather than a duplication.