Anthony ‘Tony’ Laughton was an oceanographer who helped to pioneer sonar-based research of ocean floors. His research made a major contribution to our understanding of plate tectonics and seafloor spreading. His findings were also important in establishing different countries’ claims to parts of ocean floor, and thus any underlying resources.
The device used by Tony and his team in the 1960s weighed 6 tons. Nicknamed GLORIA — Geologic Long Range Inclined Asdic — it was described as the ‘grandfather’ of side-looking sonar devices. GLORIA was towed behind a ship, capturing acoustic pictures of the sea floor over a range of about 22 kilometres. An early success of the project was identifying an active fault valley east of the Azores.
Tony initiated the United Kingdom’s involvement in the Deep Sea Drilling Project, which provided data to support hypotheses on seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. He became Director of the then Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in 1978. His many awards included the Royal Geographical Society’s Founders Medal. He was knighted in 1987 for services to oceanography.
Sir Anthony Laughton FRS died on 27 Spetember 2019.
Subject groups
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Earth and Environmental Sciences
Geology, Geophysics
