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Opportunities in geophysics

FEB 01, 1971
Challenging jobs still exist here for physicists–exploring for oil, studying ocean‐wave propagation, analyzing the behavior of water in clouds…
H. Richard Crane

What are the chances of a physicist finding an agreeable job in geophysics? The apparently poor prospects for jobs in academic physics led me to explore the possibilities in geophysics; this field, I guessed, is less dependent on government funds than is academic physics and should not have suffered the same kinds of cutbacks. For my survey of opportunities, I gleaned information from James T. Wilson, a seismologist, geologist and director of the University of Michigan Institute of Science and Technology; Helmut Landsberg of the University of Maryland, a past president of the American Geophysical Union; Homer Newell of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, now the AGU president; Milton Dobrin, president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and Richard Geyer, head of the department of oceanography at Texas A&M University. Here is a digest of what I learned.

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H. Richard Crane, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 24, Number 2

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