Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Cox (Allan) Papers
SC0343
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Allan Cox papers
Identifier/Call Number: SC0343
Physical Description:
50.75 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1954-1987
Summary: Papers document his
professional life as teacher, administrator, and researcher and include correspondence;
memoranda; research notes, charts, proposals, and reports; grant applications; outlines,
tests, lecture notes, and other teaching materials; manuscripts; minutes; date books; papers
and theses by his students; reprints; maps; and his notes while a student at UC Berkeley.
Cox studied paleomagnetism and plate tectonics theory; some materials pertain to research
done on the Galapagos Islands and in China.
Physical Location: Special Collections and University
Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged 48 hours in advance. For more
information on paging collections, see the department's website:
http://library.stanford.edu/spc.
Language of Material:
English .
This collection is open for research.
Biographical/Historical Sketch
The son of a house painter, Allan attended high school in Santa Ana. He pursued his
education through independent reading during 3 years in the merchant marine (1945-48), 3
years of undergraduate chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley (1948-51), and
2 more years of independent reading as a private in the U.S. Army (1951-53). The most
important event in his education, and the one that helped him choose geology as a career,
was a summer job with the U.S. Geological Survey in 1950 as a field assistant to Clyde
Wahrhaftig in Alaska. Allan received his B.A. (1955), M.A. (1957), and Ph.D. (1959) degrees
from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was inspired by the teaching of John
Verhoogen and Perry Byerly. He began his professional career at the U.S. Geological Survey
in Menlo Park, where he helped establish what was to become one of the most successful
paleomagnetic laboratories in the country. From 1959 to 1967 he worked as a geophysicist
with the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1967 he joined the faculty at Stanford University, where
he became Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Geophysics. He was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences in 1969 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974. He
became president of the American Geophysical Union in 1978. He received the Fleming Medal of
the American Geophysical Union (1969), the Day Medal of the Geological Society of America
(1975), and the Vetlesen Prize (1971). In 1979 he became the dean of the School of Earth
Sciences. He was an author of over 100 papers in learned scientific journals. He established
our Master's degree program in exploration geophysics, and was mentor to many students.
The essence of Allan Cox is a rare quality -- the ability and determination to bring out
the very best in others. To a degree we've never seen in another person with his
achievements, he had a most wonderful mix of personal humility with demanding standards, so
that before a colleague knew what was happening, he or she was challenged into performing at
a level not previously thought possible. And once that level was established those demands
were never relaxed. The atmosphere was exhilarating.
His best-known research joined the paleomagnetism and radiometric ages of rocks collected
from different parts of the world to find that before 700,000 years ago the geometric field
had pointed south instead of north. Since the reversals were found to occur simultaneously
everywhere, the polarity of the entire planetary field must have reversed. Together with his
colleagues, by 1966 he had established a radiometric polarity time scale for the past
4,500,000 years and had concluded that polarity changes had occurred at an average rate of 5
reversals per million years. They found that the time intervals between successive reversals
were highly variable in length, the shortest being less that than 50,000 years and the
longest greater than 1,000,000 years.
He died January 27, 1987, in a bicycle accident near his home in Skylonda.
| AAAS | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| ACS | American Chemical Society |
| AGU | American Geophysical Union |
| CGU | Canadian Geophysical Union |
| ERDA | Energy Research and Development Administration |
| G | Geophysics (course number) |
| GEO | Geology (course number) |
| GP | Geophysics (course number) |
| GSA | Geological Society of America |
| JGG | Journal of Geomagnetism and Geoelectricity |
| JGR | Journal of Geophysical Research |
| MAG | Magnometer |
| NAS | National Academy of Sciences |
| NOAA | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
| NRC | National Research Council |
| NSF | National Science Foundation |
| OPLAR | Oceanic Plateaus Research |
| PEPS | Paleomagnetic Euler Poles |
| PRF | Petroleum Research Fund |
[identification of item] Allan Cox papers (SC0343). Department of Special Collections and
University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Papers document his professional life as teacher, administrator, and researcher and include
correspondence; memoranda; research notes, charts, proposals, and reports; grant
applications; outlines, tests, lecture notes, and other teaching materials; manuscripts;
minutes; date books; papers and theses by his students; reprints; maps; and his notes while
a student at UC Berkeley. Cox studied paleomagnetism and plate tectonics theory; some
materials pertain to research done on the Galapagos Islands and in China.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must
be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent is given on behalf of Special
Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright
owner, heir(s) or assigns. See:
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of
digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
China -- Geophysics.
Plate tectonics
Paleomagnetism.
Galapagos Islands -- Geophysics.
Geophysics.