Harold Williams

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For other persons named Harold Williams, see Harold Williams (disambiguation).
Harold Williams
Dr. Harold Williams
Dr. Harold Williams
Born 14 March 1934
St. John's, Newfoundland
Residence Canada (1949-)
Dominion of Newfoundland (1934-1949)
Nationality Canada Canadian
Field Geology
Institution Geological Survey of Canada
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Alma Mater Memorial University of Newfoundland
University of Toronto
Academic Advisor J. Tuzo Wilson
Notable Students Ron Smyth, John Malpas, Leslie Chorlton, Louise Quinn, Brenna Lorenz, Jack Botsford, Kate MacLoughlan, Pablo Valverde, James Hibbard, Doug Reusch
Known for Tectonics of the Appalachian Mountains
Notable Prizes Governor General's Medal (1956)
Past President's Medal (1976)
Douglas Medal (1980)
Miller Medal (1987)
Logan Medal (1988)

Dr. Harold Williams, M.Sc, Ph.D, FRSC (born March 14, 1934) is one of the premier field geologists in the history of geology and the foremost expert on the Appalachian Mountains of North America. An expert on the evolution and tectonic development of mountain belts, Williams advanced the theory of colliding super-continents in the 1960's and 1970’s by helping to transform the notion of Continental Drift into the Theory of Plate Tectonics.

Williams was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and attended Memorial University of Newfoundland earning a diploma in Engineering and a B.Sc degree (1956) and a M.Sc degree (1958) on a Dominion Command scholarship. He earned a Ph.D from the University of Toronto in 1961. He thereafter joined the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), where he the gained the reputation of being an expert field geologist and outstanding scientist. He left the GSC in 1968 and joined the faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he was the first to receive the prestigious title of University Research Professor (1984) and the first to be appointed Alexander Murray Professor (1990). He was the first to win both the Past President’s Medal and the Logan Medal of the Geological Association of Canada.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada at age 38, a very rare accolade, and 15 years later was awarded the Miller Medal by its Academy of Science. First winner of the R.J.W. Douglas Medal of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, he was also the first geoscientist to be awarded an Isaac Walton Killam Memorial Fellowship and the first scientist of any kind to hold this award for four full years. He has over 250 publications to his credit and for several years in the past three decades has been the most cited Canadian geoscientist in the world.

Geological map of the Appalachian Mountains
Enlarge
Geological map of the Appalachian Mountains

Williams was among the first to describe the evidence for the existence of the Iapetus Ocean, the predecessor of the modern Atlantic Ocean. A sampling of these rocks is preserved and protected in Gros Morne National Park of western Newfoundland, which has qualified for UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition under his advocacy. Williams is perhaps best known for producing the world's first tectonic lithofacies map and the first geological map of the entire Appalachian Mountains in the USA and Canada in 1978.

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