Kenneth Midworth Creer (1925 – 19 August 2020) was a British and Manx geophysicist who was the head of the

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...

department at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. He was the president of the

European Geophysical Society The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet". The organisation has headq ...

from 1992 to 1994 and won the

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

in 1996 among other accolades. Creer was an early pioneer of the theory of

paleomagnetism Paleomagnetism (occasionally palaeomagnetism) is the study of prehistoric Earth's magnetic fields recorded in rocks, sediment, or archeological materials. Geophysicists who specialize in paleomagnetism are called ''paleomagnetists.'' Certain ...

, and was instrumental in producing the first paleomagnetic surveys and the first polar wandering curve.

Biography

Early life and military service

Kenneth Midworth Creer was born in

Douglas, Isle of Man Douglas (, ) is the Capital (political), capital city and largest settlement of the Isle of Man, with a population of 26,677 (2021) and an area of . It is located at the mouth of the River Douglas, Isle of Man, River Douglas, and on a sweepi ...

in 1925. He went to Douglas High School. In 1944, immediately after leaving high school, Creer entered military service, becoming a 2nd lieutenant in the

King's Regiment The King's Regiment, officially abbreviated as KINGS, was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the King's Division. It was formed on 1 September 1958 by the amalgamation of the King's Regiment (Liverpool) which had been raised in 168 ...

in June 1945. He went on to serve in the

Royal West African Frontier Force The West African Frontier Force (WAFF) was a multi-battalion field force, formed by the British Colonial Office in 1900 to garrison the British West Africa, West African colonies of Nigeria, Gold Coast (British colony), Gold Coast, Sierra Leone ...

(1945–46) as well as the High Commission Territories Corps in Egypt (1946–47).

Scientific career

From 1948 to 1951 Creer studied at

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the R ...

. He then completed an MSc (1953) and PhD (1955) at the University of Cambridge. In 1954 Creer took up employment with the Geological Survey. In 1956 Creer was given a lectureship at

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a mem ...

, and in 1963 he was promoted to Reader of Geophysics. In 1966 Creer was promoted to a professorship. During his time at Newcastle, Creer was an advisor for the young lecturer in geophysics, Subir Kumar Banerjee. From 1971 to 1972 Creer was a visiting professor at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. In 1973, Creer was appointed head of the geophysics department at the

, and held the role until his retirement in 1993. In his early career, Creer worked mainly on demagnetisation in a laboratory setting. At Newcastle, he showed that for

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

minerals, the direction of the

secular variation The secular variation of a time series is its long-term, non-periodic variation (see '' Decomposition of time series''). Whether a variation is perceived as secular or not depends on the available timescale: a variation that is secular over a times ...

of the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...

could be deduced from the residual magnetisation. Creer was a supporter of the

expanding Earth The expanding Earth or growing Earth was a hypothesis attempting to explain the position and relative movement of continents by increase in the volume of Earth. With the recognition of plate tectonics in 20th century, the idea has been abandone ...

theory and of applying

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

to geological problems. He published a paper in 1965 entitled "Tracking the Earth’s Continents", in which he suggested that the Earth could be expanding at the same rate as the

Hubble constant Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther a galaxy is from the Earth, the faste ...

, and that the

gravitational constant The gravitational constant is an empirical physical constant involved in the calculation of gravitational effects in Sir Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation and in Albert Einstein's general relativity, theory of general relativity. It ...

could be weakening on a universal scale. During his scientific career, Creer was given credit for some of the earliest paleomagnetic surveys, conducting surveys of the

Palaeozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma at the start of ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

and the

Phanerozoic The Phanerozoic is the current and the latest of the four eon (geology), geologic eons in the Earth's geologic time scale, covering the time period from 538.8 million years ago to the present. It is the eon during which abundant animal and ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. He also produced the first polar wandering curve (for Great Britain) along with Edward A. Irving and

Keith Runcorn (Stanley) Keith Runcorn (19 November 1922 – 5 December 1995) was a British physicist whose paleomagnetic reconstruction of the relative motions of Europe and America revived the theory of continental drift and was a major contribution to pla ...

, and was a pioneer of continental reconstructions from

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

using solely paleomagnetism. In later life, Creer worked on the paleomagnetism of

sedimentary basin Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock They form when long-term subsidence ...

s. From 1994 to 1995, he was a visiting professor at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. Creer died on 19 August 2020.

Leadership roles

Creer was the vice president of the

Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...

from 1986 to 1987. He was president of the

from 1992 to 1994. Creer was instrumental in the merging of several journals to form ''

Geophysical Journal International ''Geophysical Journal International'' (GJI) is a monthly Peer review, peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of geophysics. It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of two learned societies: the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) ...

'', and was the last editor of the Geophysics Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He founded the UK Geophysical Assembly in 1977, a now inactive conference aimed at early career scientists.

Awards

Creer received fellowships of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

, the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

and the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. He received a Prix mondial Nessim Habif for Science from the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

in 1987, the

John Adam Fleming Medal John Adam Fleming, (January 28, 1877 – July 29, 1956) was an American geophysicist interested in the magnetosphere and the atmospheric electricity. Fleming worked first at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey with his superior Louis Agri ...

from the American Geophysical Union in 1990, and the

in 1996. He was also awarded the freedom of the city of

Grenoble Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...

, France, in 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Creer, Kenneth 1925 births 2020 deaths British geophysicists Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Members of Academia Europaea Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge People from Douglas, Isle of Man Manx people Academics of Newcastle University