Person Laughton; Sir; Anthony Seymour (1927 - 2019) Laughton Anthony Seymour Sir 1927 - 2019 British Male London, England, United Kingdom 29/04/1927 19270429 27/09/2019 20190927

Oceanographer Geology Geophysics Oceanography Plate tectonics Sea-floor spreading Sonar Underwater photography Education: Heysham, Hampstead (1932-1936); Abinger Hill School, Holmbury St Mary, Surrey (1936-1940); Marlborough College, Wiltshire (1940-1945); King's College, University of Cambridge, Naval Short Course in Moral Sciences; National Service, Royal Navy (1945-1948); King's College, Cambridge, MA in Natural Sciences (1948-1954); John Murray Studentship at Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University (1954-1955); University of Cambridge PhD (1955) Career: National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Senior Scientific Officer (1955-1957), Principal Scientific Officer (1961-1962), Senior Principal Scientific Officer (1966-1972), Group Leader, Marine Geology and Geophysics Group (1972-1977); Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (IOS, formerly NIO) Deputy Chief Scientific Officer (1977-1978), Director and Chief Scientific Officer (1978-1988); retired from Director IOS Deacon Laboratory (IOSDL) (1988); Consultant in marine science and oceanography (1988-2019); Consultant, Buro Happold Environmental Assessment, (1989); IOSDL, Visiting Research Fellow (1989), Senior Visiting Research Fellow (1991); Visiting Research Fellow, Southampton Oceanography Centre, (1995-2019); Fellow in the School of Ocean and Earth Science, Southampton University, (1999-2002). Honours: Kt 1987 Memberships: Challenger Society for Marine Sciences, President (1988-1990); Society for Underwater Technology (1991), President (1995-1997); President of Hydrographic Society (1997-1999) Medals and Awards: Cuthbert Peake Grant of the Royal Geographical Society for investigations of the sea floor of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans; Prince Albert 1st of Monaco Gold Medal for Oceanography (1980); Founders Medal, Royal Geographical Society (1987); Murchison Medal, Geological Society of London (1989) Anthony ‘Tony’ Laughton was an oceanographer who helped to pioneer sonar-based research of ocean floors. His research made a major contribution to our understanding of plate tectonics and seafloor spreading. His findings were also important in establishing different countries’ claims to parts of ocean floor, and thus any underlying resources. The device used by Tony and his team in the 1960s weighed 6 tons. Nicknamed GLORIA — Geologic Long Range Inclined Asdic — it was described as the ‘grandfather’ of side-looking sonar devices. GLORIA was towed behind a ship, capturing acoustic pictures of the sea floor over a range of about 22 kilometres. An early success of the project was identifying an active fault valley east of the Azores. Tony initiated the United Kingdom’s involvement in the Deep Sea Drilling Project, which provided data to support hypotheses on seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. He became Director of the then Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in 1978. His many awards included the Royal Geographical Society’s Founders Medal. He was knighted in 1987 for services to oceanography. Sir Anthony Laughton FRS died on 27 Spetember 2019. Fellow 20/03/1980 52 Sources: https://royalsociety.org/people/anthony-laughton-11791/ International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN 0-9696035-3-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 29 Apr 1927 - 27 Sep 2019 NA4452 21/11/2001 Andyg Pmab 28/03/2023 RS_NET\JonathanB Yes 0b1405fc-e96c-49c2-ab98-8d5f3584bb64