OBITUARY — J. Tuzo Wilson known internationally

World-renowned geophysicist and educator John Tuzo Wilson died recently in Toronto of a heart attack. He was 84.

TWilson, a man of much energy, recently addressed a joint CIM-PDAC luncheon at this year’s annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.

A native of Ottawa, Wilson was a graduate of the University of Toronto in physics and geology. He received a doctorate in geology from Princeton and a doctorate in geophysics from Cambridge.

During his student years, he spent his summers on geological field parties; from 1936-39 he was an assistant geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada. He served in the Canadian army during the Second World War. Wilson was an early proponent of continental drift and the plate tectonic theory that describes the movement of continental and oceanic plates on the Earth’s crust.

A professor of geophysics at the University of Toronto and later that university’s director of earth sciences, Wilson served as principal of the U of T’s Erindale College (a satellite campus west of Toronto). From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, he served as director-general of the Ontario Science Centre, situated in a Toronto suburb. During the 1980s he served also as chancellor of York University.

An author and world traveller, Wilson was a member or fellow of numerous scientific and professional bodies and was the recipient of many medals and awards.