Xavier Le Pichon

Le Pichon completed a Strasbourg thesis on Mid-Atlantic Ridge structure in 1966 and worked with Maurice Ewing’s Lamont team. His 1968 model quantified relative motions of major plates and reconstructed Atlantic evolution since the Cretaceous.

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Returning to France, he organised marine geophysical surveys and international diving programmes, including FAMOUS at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Kaiko collaborations around Japanese trenches. His work connected models with direct seafloor observation.

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With Jean Bonnin and Jean Francheteau, he co-authored Plate Tectonics in 1973. He continued work on rifting, subduction and collision and held the Geodynamics chair at the Collège de France from 1986 to 2008.

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