Jack E. Oliver

Jack E. Oliver was an American seismologist and geophysicist who lived from 1923 to 2011 and led the seismology program at Columbia University own Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory before moving to Cornell University in 1971 as chair of geophysics, best known for his 1968 paper with Bryan Isacks and Lynn Sykes, Seismology and the New Global Tectonics, which used South Pacific seismographic stations to show ocean floor being pushed downward at subduction zones, key evidence for plate tectonics. He co-founded the Consortium for Continental Reflection Profiling, pioneering reflection seismology to explore the deep structure of continental crust, advised the White House on nuclear test ban treaties from 1958 to 1959, and served as president of the Geological Society of America in 1987. He received the Walter H. Bucher Medal in 1981. He received the Penrose Medal in 1998.