Francis Parker Shepard

Francis Parker Shepard was an American sedimentologist born May 10, 1897, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, who died April 25, 1985, and who taught at the University of Illinois from 1922, becoming full professor in 1939, before joining the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1937 and serving as professor of submarine geology there from 1945 until his retirement in 1966. He is most associated with his studies of submarine canyons and seafloor currents around continental shelves and slopes, proposing that submarine canyons were initially carved by rivers when sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene epoch, and he directed petroleum industry research on Gulf of Mexico sedimentation from 1951 to 1960. He received the Wollaston Medal in 1966 and the Sorby Medal of the International Association of Sedimentologists in 1978; the Francis P. Shepard Medal for Marine Geology has been awarded annually in his honor since 1967.