Bruce heezen biography

Biography.
Bruce Charles Heezen was an American geologist.
Heezen graduated from Muscatine High School in 1942.

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Heezen, Bruce C.

Dates

Biography

Bruce C. Heezen was born April 11, 1924 in Vinton, Iowa, to Charles C. and Esther (Schirding) Heezen. When he was six years old his family moved to Muscatine, Iowa. Mr. Heezen graduated from Muscatine High School in 1942. He attended the State University of Iowa and received his B.A. degree in geology in 1948. While attending S.U.I., he was influenced to study oceanography by Professor Maurice Ewing, a lecturer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Heezen took his M.S. and Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1952 and 1957, where he studied under Mr. Ewing. He was associate professor of geology and an oceanographer at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University from 1949 until his death on June 21, 1977. His discovery of the central rift valley in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge while leading a team of Columbia University researchers advanced the knowledge of plate tectonics. Dr. Heezen and his colleagues, Marie Tharp and Maurice Ewing, created their first map of the ocean floor i

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Heezen, Bruce C.

(b. Vinton, Iowa, 11 April 1924; d. at sea, south of Iceland, 21 June 1977)

oceanography.

Heezen was the son of Charles Christian Heezen and Esther Shirding. When he was still young, the family moved to Muscatine, iowa. As the only child of affluent parents, he was able to pursue his many interests in the outer world about him and the inner world of the laboratory and the library. Heezen was also called upon, in his younger years, to help his father and, in his father’s absence, to manage the family turkey farm.

Heezen enrolled at the University of Iowa in 1942, and as a geology major he worked closely with his professor, A.K. Miller, and Professor Arthur Trowbridge. After he spent a summer in Nevada as an assistant to Walter Youngquist, who was collecting cephalopods for his Ph. D. dissertation, Heezen’s future career as a paleontologist seemed assured. However, in April 1947, after hearing a Sigma Xi lecture by Maurice Ewing of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on the perils and adventures of deep-sea exploration, Heezen went up to meet him. Ewin

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The University of Iowa Libraries

Finding Aid

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Bruce C. Heezen Papers
RG 99.0085
Collection Dates: 1938-2000
4.5 linear ft.

Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research.

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