Bruce C. Heezen Scientist
Bruce Charles Heezen (HAY-zen) (April 11, 1924 – June 21, 1977) was an American geologist. He worked with oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp at Columbia University to map the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the 1950s.Heezen was born in Vinton, Iowa. An only child, he moved at age six with his parents to Muscatine, Iowa, where he graduated from high school in 1942. He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1947. He received his M.A. in 1952 and a Ph.D in 1957 from Columbia University.Heezen collaborated extensively with cartographer Marie Tharp. He interpreted their joint work on the Mid-Atlantic ridge as supporting S. Warren Carey's Expanding Earth Theory, developed in the 1950s, but under Tharp's influence "eventually gave up the idea of an expanding earth for a form of continental drift in the mid-1960s."Heezen died in 1977 during a research cruise to study the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near Iceland aboard the NR-1 submarine.The Oceanographic Survey Ship USNS Bruce C. Heezen was christened in honor of him in 1999.