J. Tuzo Wilson

John Tuzo Wilson, known as J. Tuzo Wilson, was a Canadian geophysicist and geologist at the University of Toronto who lived from 1908 to 1993 and became internationally renowned for his contributions to plate tectonics theory. He introduced the concept of hot spots, regions of the mantle hotter than their surroundings, exemplified by the Hawaii hotspot, and developed the theory of transform faults, plate boundaries where two plates move past each other horizontally, of which the San Andreas Fault is an example. His influential 1968 paper on what became called the Wilson cycle described the pattern of ocean basin opening and closing associated with the assembly and breakup of supercontinents. He served as principal of Erindale College from 1968 to 1974 and Chancellor of York University from 1983 to 1986, was a fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. He received the Penrose Medal in 1968.