Bob White (geophysicist)

Professor Robert White is Professor of Geophysics in the Earth Sciences department at Cambridge University (since 1989) and was elected a FRS in 1994.

Biography

White is also a Fellow of the Geological Society, and a member of the American Geophysical Union and several other professional bodies; he serves on numerous of their committees. He leads a research group investigating the Earth’s dynamic crust: in particular the way in which enormous volumes of volcanic rock are produced when continents and oceans rift apart. He has organised fieldwork and supervised 38 PhD students at Cambridge, many of whom are now prominent in academia, industry, government and education. His work at sea has taken him to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and his research group is currently investigating the internal structure of volcanoes in Iceland, New Zealand, the Faroes and the Atlantic margin. His scientific work is published in over 250 papers and articles.

He is on the committee of Christians in Science , and is a director of the John Ray Initiative, an educational charity that works to develop and communicate a Christian understanding of the environment. Since 1988 he has been a Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, prior to which he was a student and Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is Associate Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

Publications

elected Science-Religion Publications

* White, Robert (2001). Science: Friend or Foe? The Church of England Newspaper, Friday August 24, 2001, p. 11 (also published on Christians in Science web site www.cis.org.uk)
* White, R. S. (2002). The age of the earth. Evangelicals Now, December 2002, 18.
* Alexander, D. & White, R. S. (2004). Beyond Belief: Science, Faith and Ethical Challenges, Lion, Oxford, 219pp.
* White, R. S. (2005). Truth in the geological sciences, in "Can We Be Sure About Anything? Science, Faith and Postmodernism" (ed. Denis Alexander), Apollos (an imprint of Inter-Varsity Press), Leicester, pp. 187-213.
* White, R. S. (2005). "Genesis and Creation, Truth Matters", Reform article (see www.reform.org.uk).

elected Scientific Publications

* White, R. & McKenzie, D. (1989). Magmatism at rift zones: The generation of volcanic continental margins and flood basalts. Journal of Geophysical Research, 94, 7685–7729.
* White, R. S., McKenzie, D. & O'Nions, R. K. (1992). Oceanic crustal thickness from seismic measurements and rare earth element inversions. Journal of Geophysical Research, 97, 19,683–19,715.
* Bown, J. W. & White, R. S. (1994). Variation with spreading rate of oceanic crustal thickness and geochemistry. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 121, 435–449.
* White, R. S., Minshull, T. A., Bickle, M. J. & Robinson, C. J. (2001). Melt generation at very slow-spreading oceanic ridges: constraints from geochemical and geophysical data. Journal of Petrology, 42, 1171–1196.
* White, R. S., Christie, P. A. F., Kusznir, N. J., Roberts, A., Davies, A., Hurst, N., Lunnon, Z., Parkin, C. J., Roberts, A. W., Smith, L. K., Spitzer, R., Surendra, A. & Tymms, V. (2002). iSIMM pushes frontiers of marine seismic acquisition. First Break, 20, 782786.
* White, R. S., Smallwood, J. R., Fliedner, M. M., Boslaugh, B., Maresh, J. & Fruehn, J. (2003). Imaging and regional distribution of basalt flows in the Faroe-Shetland Basin. Geophysical Prospecting, 51, 215–231.
* Harrison, A. J. & White, R. S. (2004). Crustal structure of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand: stretching and igneous intrusion, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 31, L13615, doi: 10.129/2004GL019885.2004.
* Spitzer, R., White, R. S. & iSIMM Team (2005). Advances in seismic imaging beneath basalts: a case study from the Faroe-Shetland Basin, Petroleum Geoscience, 11, 147−156.

Notes & References