Oral history interview with John and Betty Ewing, 1997.

Biographical Note

Geophysicist.

Scope and Contents

Childhood, Lockney, Texas: homesteading, growing up during the Depression; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute [WHOI], 1941-42: work with brother W. Maurice Ewing [M. Ewing], Anton Dohrn voyages, underwater photography work, Naval bathythermography building; World War II service, 1943-1946; Harvard University, B.S., physics, 1950; Lamont Geological Observatory [Lamont],1949-1976: Doc's move from WHOI to Lamont, SOFAR work, instrumentation development, sunk ship identification, international visitors, post-war international focus on science, sea voyages, ship equipment and regulations, SOSUS installation, Lamont departmental interactions, funding changes, Lamont's relations with other earth science research organizations, MOHOLE and JOIDES deep-sea drilling projects, M. Ewing's resistance to plate tectonics theory; M. Ewing's move to University of Texas, Galveston, 1972, choice of new director; Blue Hill Gulf project, 1981-1983; WHOI, 1976-1981, 1983- , chairman, department of geology and geophysics: multi-channeling seismic profile work, transitions affecting earth science research centers in the eighties; reminiscences of family and colleagues.

Subjects

• Columbia University.
• Doel, Ronald, interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Ewing, Betty, interviewee.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ive
• Ewing, Betty--Interviews.
• Ewing, John--Interviews.
• Ewing, W. Maurice (William Maurice), 1906-1974.
• Interviews.
• Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1998