Roger C. Searle

Roger Clive Searle (born 24 October 1944 in St Ives, Huntingdonshire, died 26 November 2024, Northumberland) was an English geophysicist, known for using sonar imaging in research on the geology and geophysics of the ocean floor. In particular, he has made important contributions to understanding the oceanic spreading system and the mid-ocean spreading centres.

Biography Searle graduated from the University of Cambridge with a B.A. (with a major in physics) in 1966 and an M.A. in 1970. He received a PhD in geophysics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1969. From 1970 to 1973 he was an assistant professor at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa. At the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in Wormsley Park, Searle was a senior science officer from 1973 to 1978; a principal science officer, civil service grade 7, from 1978 to 1988; and a senior principal science officer, civil service grade 6 (Individual Merit), from 1988 to 1989. At the University of Durham, he was a professor of geophysics from 1989 until his retirement in 2011 as professor emeritus. During his professorship he supervised eleven doctoral students. He served as department head from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2002. He was from 1982 to 1983 a visiting scientist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and in 2003 a guest investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Searle was a marine geophysicist with an international reputation. He gave invited keynote talks in 2002 in Italy, in 2002 in France and China, from 2003 to 2011 in the US and the UK, in 2008 in India, and in 2012 in China and the USA. He participated in 37 research cruises, including 18 as principal or co-principal scientist (i.e. leader or co-leader of the science team aboard the cruise). and for the 2007 inaugural research cruise of the RRS James Cook. In the 1970s and the 1980s he used sidescan sonar and topographic analysis to define plate boundaries at subkilometre resolution and did research on propagating rifts and oceanic microplates Later in his career, he studied the effects of mantle hot spots on plate accretion and, with co-workers, found some of the first evidence that extreme asymmetry can occur in short-term plate accretion. He did important research on seamount morphology and origin, the geodynamics of oceanic core complexes, and ultra-slow rates in seafloor spreading. From 1992 to 1994 he was a member of the steering committee of BRIDGE. From 1994 to 1996 he chaired InterRidge.

In September 1969 in Durham, he married Margery Joan McGuckin. They have three sons.

Selected publications Articles

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