Pål Wessel Explained

Norwegian: Pål Wessel
Birth Date:	31 August 1959
Birth Place:	Sarpsborg, Norway
Death Place:	Nittedal, Norway
Other Names:	Paul Wessel
Fields:	Geoscience
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Known For:	Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)
Spouse:	Jill Wessel
Children:	2

Pål Wessel (August 31, 1959 – March 26, 2024) pronounced as, and also known as Paul Wessel, was a professor of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He taught as a visiting professor at Sydney University in Australia and University of Oslo in Norway. Wessel was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.^[1]

Open source mapping tools and data

In the 1980s, Wessel and Walter H. F. Smith created Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), an open-source collection of computer software tools for processing and displaying geographic and Cartesian datasets.^[2] They later supplemented this with the Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database (GSHHS) that they constructed from two public domain data sets, the World Data Bank II (WDB), also known as CIA Data Bank, and the World Vector Shoreline (WVS) data set.^[3]

Geological and geophysical research

Areas in which Wessel conducted research included:

• Periodic co-pulsing of volcanic hot spots, including Hawaii, Yellowstone, Iceland, Easter Island, La Réunion, Tristan, the Galápagos, Samoa, Ontong Java, Tasmantid, the Society Islands, the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, St. Helena, Afar-Kenya, and others^{[4] [5]}
• Plate Tectonic Reconstructions and Hot Spot Fixity^{[6] [7]}
• Improvement of marine geophysical data sets via data analysis^[8]
• Thermo-mechanical Evolution and Properties of Oceanic Lithosphere^[9]
• Flexural Deformation of Lithosphere at Seamounts, Fracture Zones, and Trenches^[10]

See also

• Generic Mapping Tools
• GSHHS
• Hawaii hotspot

Further reading

• Web site: Pål (Paul) Wessel . Pål . Wessel . Pål Wessel . November 28, 2010 . School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa . Honolulu . December 22, 2010.

Pål Wessel's GG/SOEST/UHM web page.

• Web site: The GMT Home Page . Paul . Wessel . Pål Wessel . November 1, 2010 . School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa . Honolulu . December 22, 2010.
• Web site: GSHHS A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database . November 1, 2010 . National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) . Boulder, Colorado . December 22, 2010 .
• Web site: Geoware Online Store . Paul . Wessel . July 21, 2010 . August 30, 2011 . Geoware specializes in using GMT to make regional and global topographic maps of exceptional quality, and developing custom applications written in C or Unix shells. We also distribute the GMT Companion CD-R and DVD-Rs which provide the service of combining many public-domain data sets and software on easy-to-install CD- or DVD-Rs for both Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms (New versions as of July 15, 2010). Finally, we also distribute TTT, the tsunami travel time estimator for bathymetric grids..

Notes and References

1. Web site: Geological Society of America - Fellowship . . Boulder, CO . December 21, 2010.
2. Wessel, P.. Smith, W. H. F. . 1995 . New version of the generic mapping tools released . Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union . 76 . 33 . 329 . Washington, DC . American Geophysical Union . 0002-8606 . 1479928 . 1995EOSTr..76..329W. 10.1029/95EO00198 .
3. Wessel . Pål . Pål Wessel . Walter H. F. . Smith . April 2001 . A Global, Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-Resolution Shoreline Database . . 101 . B4 . 8741–8743 . Richmond, Va . William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press . 0148-0227 . 2396688 . 10.1029/96JB00104 . December 22, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121001160413/http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1996/96JB00104.shtml . October 1, 2012 . 1996JGR...101.8741W. Alt URL
4. Mjelde . Rolf . Wessel . Paul . Pål Wessel . Müller . R. Dietmar . October 2010 . Global pulsations of intraplate magmatism through the Cenozoic. Lithosphere . 2 . 5 . 361–376 . Boulder, Colorado . Geological Society of America . 1941-8264 . 302419952 . 10.1130/L107.1 . 2010Lsphe...2..361M . free.
5. Web site: Earth's pulse felt at hot spots . Larry . O'Hanlon . September 22, 2010 . Discovery Communications, Inc . New York . December 23, 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101113014642/http://news.discovery.com/earth/earth-pulse-hot-spots.html . November 13, 2010.
6. Wessel . Paul . Pål Wessel . 9 August 2008 . Hotspotting: Principles and properties of a plate tectonic Hough transform . Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems . 9 . Q08004 . n/a . Washington, DC . . 1525-2027 . 41417292 . 2008GGG.....908004W. 10.1029/2008GC002058 . December 24, 2010 . free.
7. Wessel . Pål . Pål Wessel . Observational Constraints on Models of the Hawaiian Hot Spot Swell . 1993 . . 98 . B9 . 16,095–16,104 . Richmond, Va . William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press . 0148-0227 . 2396688 . 10.1029/93JB01230 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110716141512/http://europa.agu.org/?view=article&uri=/journals/jb/93JB01230.xml&t=1993,Wessel . July 16, 2011 . December 24, 2010 . 1993JGR....9816095W. Alt URL
8. Wessel . Pål . Pål Wessel . J. M. . Becker . July 2008 . Interpolation using a generalized Green's function for a spherical surface spline in tension . . 174 . 1 . 21–28 . Oxford . Blackwell Science . 1365-246X . 48413162 . 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2008.03829.x. 2008GeoJI.174...21W . free .
9. Wessel . P. . Pål Wessel . 1992 . Thermal Stresses and the Bimodal Distribution of Elastic Thickness Estimates of the Oceanic Lithosphere. . 97 . B10 . 4,177–14,193 . Richmond, Va . William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press . 0148-0227 . 2396688 . 1992JGR....9714177W. 10.1029/92JB01224 . December 24, 2010 .
10. Kim . Seung-Sep . Wessel . Paul . Pål Wessel . August 2010 . Flexure modelling at seamounts with dense cores . . 182 . 2 . 583–598 . Oxford . Blackwell Science . 1365-246X . 48413162. 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2010.04653.x. 2010GeoJI.182..583K . free.