Maurice Ewing

William Maurice Ewing, known as Maurice Ewing, was an American geophysicist and oceanographer, born in 1906 in Lockney, Texas, and died in 1974 in Galveston, Texas. He founded and directed the Lamont Geological Observatory at Columbia University beginning in 1949, discovered the SOFAR channel of long range underwater sound transmission, and led more than fifty oceanic expeditions gathering seismic and core sampling data that advanced plate tectonics theory and the mapping of the ocean floor. He served as president of both the American Geophysical Union and the Seismological Society of America.