Tom Gaskell Explained

Thomas Gaskell
Birth Name:Thomas Frohock Gaskell
Birth Date:26 January 1916
Death Date:1995
Field:Oceanographer
Geophysicist
Alma Mater:Cambridge University (Ph.D., 1940)
Known For:Combined Operations HeadquartersChallenger Deep

Thomas Frohock Gaskell (January 26, 1916 - 1995), or T. F. Gaskell, was a British oceanographer and geophysicist. He is known for his work relating to the seabed, currents, and the ocean's influence on climate, and for his role in the discovery of Challenger Deep.[1]

Education

Gaskell attended Cambridge University on a scholarship, studying physics under Ernest Rutherford and, on Rutherford's recommendation, working as a research assistant to Edward Bullard.[2] [3] He received a PhD in 1940.[4]

Career

Wartime intelligence

During World War II, Gaskell advised the Admiralty Mining Establishment of the Royal Navy on anti-mine counter-measures, alongside Robert Boyd, Francis Crick and other recent science graduates.[5] [6] Journalist Anthony Michaelis has described how, despite an air raid on their facility,

the great brilliance of this remarkable group of young scientists began to tell and they moved rapidly ahead. When one day the Germans laid their latest and to them unbeatable mine, combining acoustic and magnetic trigger mechanisms, the team had forestalled them, and were able immediately to hand sweeping instructions to the crews.
As Britain prepared its offensive against German-occupied Europe, Gaskell joined the Combined Operations Headquarters, advising on beach intelligence and bombardment.[7] Days after Operation Overlord began,
Gaskell had the highly gratifying, but by no means un-dangerous, job of walking the beaches of Normandy and verifying his predictions by making actual measurements of the diameters of mine craters.

Persian oilfields

From 1946 to 1949, Gaskell was Chief Petroleum Physicist for the Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, which succeeded the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and later became British Petroleum.[8] He was based in Masjed Soleyman.

Challenger expedition

Between 1950 and 1952, Gaskell served as Chief Scientist on the worldwide oceanographic expedition of HMS Challenger. His team included oceanographer John Swallow and geophysicist Maurice Hill.[9] Their mission was to confirm the theory of continental drift and plate tectonics.

Mariana Trench

The expedition is renowned for having identified the record-setting depth of what is now called Challenger Deep,[10] [11] the deepest point in the oceans. George Stephen Ritchie, captain of HMS Challenger, recalled:

On the way south from Japan to Manus, Dr. Gaskell had said that he wished to carry out one of his seismic experiments in a deep trench in order to find out something of the structure of the sea-floor in such an area. So, as the ship moved into the Marianas Trench between Guam and Ulithi, John Swallow was active with the seismic gear [...] The soundings rapidly increased and soon Swallow was reporting over 5000 fathoms and finally 5663 fathoms.[12]

At that point the echo-sounder failed in the unprecedented depth, forcing Gaskell's team to improvise. Gaskell recounted the result:

A heavy iron weight (140 lb.) was lowered over the stern on thin steel piano wire [...] it took from ten past five in the evening until twenty to seven, that is an hour and a half, for the iron weight to fall to the sea-bottom. It was almost dark by the time the weight struck, but great excitement greeted the reading of 5,944 fathoms [10,870 metres] for the wire paid out.[13]

Funafuti (Tuvalu)

Among Challenger's many ports of call, Funafuti atoll features prominently in the associated memoirs. Gaskell recalled projecting a Western film for the inhabitants, who had never seen horses and laughed at the sight of them,[14] while Ritchie explained that Challenger's arrival harkened back to an earlier scientific expedition to Funafuti, led by William Sollas for the Royal Society in 1896:

An old man remembered the coming of the scientists of the Coral Investigation Committee 50 years before, and he led Dr. Gaskell to the site of the deep borehole, the mouth of the hole being still visible but choked with vegetation.[15]

British Petroleum

Gaskell subsequently worked for British Petroleum, as Senior Physicist in the Exploration Department.[16] He appeared regularly on radio and television and published and lectured widely.

Climate change

In 1979, Gaskell warned of "the temperature rise due to the burning of fossil fuels", adding:

[t]he need in climate research is also interdisciplinary, and a start has already been made with extensive meteorological and oceanographical experiments to determine some of the exchanges that occur between sea and air, which clearly affect weather and climate.[17]  

Legacy

Gaskell died in 1995. He is commemorated by Gaskell Ridge, an undersea feature in the Indian Ocean.[18]

Selected works

Books

References

  1. Book: Who's who of British Scientists . Longman . 1971 . 978-0-582-11464-7 . en . Google Books.
  2. Web site: 1973 . Michaelis, A. R., 1973 . 2023-10-12 . ArchiveSearch . GBR/0014/BLRD J.93.
  3. Web site: Bullard . E.C. . Edward Bullard . Maxwell . A.E. . Ann Maxwell . Munk . W.H. . Walter Munk . Cox . C.S. . 1980 . Sir Edward Bullard (obituary) . October 26, 2023 . UCSD Library.
  4. Book: New Scientist . 1961-04-13 . Reed Business Information . en.
  5. News: Cruise . A. M. . 2004-02-11 . Sir Robert Boyd . 2023-10-08 . . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  6. March 26, 1966 . Dr. Maurice N. Hill, FRS (Obituary) . Nature . 209 . 5030 . 1287. 10.1038/2091287a0 . Davies . D. .
  7. Book: Bates . Charles C. . Geophysics in the Affairs of Man: A Personalized History of Exploration Geophysics and Its Allied Sciences of Seismology and Oceanography . Gaskell . Thomas F. . Rice . Robert B. . 2016-01-22 . Pergamon Press . 978-1-4831-5221-9 . 491 . en . Tom Gaskell . Google Books.
  8. Book: Gaskell, Thomas Frohock . Under the Deep Oceans: Twentieth Century Voyages of Discovery . Eyre & Spottiswoode . 1960 . 1st . London . back flap, 15 . 4898029.
  9. Mason . Melvyn . White . Robert S. . Bob White (geophysicist) . 2020-03-20 . Cambridge radio sonobuoys and the seismic structure of oceanic crust . Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science . en . 74 . 1 . 55, 64 . 10.1098/rsnr.2018.0061 . 0035-9149 . 135068145.
  10. Book: Rouch, Jules . Époque contemporaine, tome IV de Histoire Universelle des Explorations . Nouvelle Librairie de France . 1957 . Paris . 105 . fr-FR . Contemporary era, volume IV of Universal History of Explorations.
  11. Book: Gaskell, Thomas . Under the Deep Oceans: Twentieth Century Voyages of Discovery . Eyre & Spottiswoode . 1960 . 1st . London . 24 . 4898029.
  12. Book: Ritchie, G. S. (George Stephen) . Challenger: the Life of a Survey Ship . 1958 . New York, Abelard-Schuman . MBLWHOI Library . 224 . George Stephen Ritchie.
  13. Book: Gaskell, Thomas . Under the Deep Oceans: Twentieth Century Voyages of Discovery . Eyre & Spottiswoode . 1960 . 1st . London . 121 . 4898029.
  14. Book: Gaskell, Thomas . Under the Deep Oceans: Twentieth Century Voyages of Discovery . Eyre & Spottiswoode . 1960 . 1st . London . 143 . 4898029.
  15. Book: Ritchie, G. S. (George Stephen) . Challenger; the life of a survey ship . 1958 . New York, Abelard-Schuman . MBLWHOI Library . 217 . George Stephen Ritchie.
  16. Book: New Scientist . 1957-09-26 . Reed Business Information . en.
  17. Book: Gaskell, Thomas . World Climate: The Weather, The Environment and Man . Morris . Martin . Thames & Hudson . 1979 . 978-0500012185 . 138 .
  18. Web site: Marine Regions · Gaskell Ridge (Ridge) . 2023-10-03 . Marine Regions.