Allan Cox

Allan Verne Cox was an American geophysicist, born in 1926 in Santa Ana, California, and died in 1987. Working with Richard Doell and geochronologist G. Brent Dalrymple at the United States Geological Survey, he helped construct the first accurate geomagnetic polarity time scale by dating the reversals of Earth's magnetic field recorded in volcanic rocks, a result that became a major piece of supporting evidence for plate tectonics. He joined the geophysics department at Stanford University in 1967 and later served as dean of its School of Earth Sciences.