Thomas Dibblee, 93, Mapped California
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Thomas Dibblee Jr., a renowned field geologist who mapped out nearly a quarter of California, died Wednesday at his home in Santa Barbara. He was 93.
Dibblee created maps for almost 40,000 square miles of state territory, including areas of the Mojave Desert and the Imperial and Coast ranges. He garnered a Presidential Volunteer Action Award from President Reagan in 1983 after charting 2 million acres of Los Padres National Forest on his own.
Many of his 500 maps were based on solitary hikes through the backcountry.
For his part, Dibblee said he was motivated by scientific curiosity.
“The more geology I map in the field, the more I get fascinated with it,” he wrote in a 2002 letter.
Born on October 11,1911,Dibblee attended Stanford University and mapped areas for various oil companies through the 1940s.
After going to work for the U.S. Geological Survey, he and a friend, Mason T. Hill, co-authored a key study in 1953 suggesting that the San Andreas Fault had moved north to south by almost 350 miles. The paper became a fundamental part of research into plate tectonics.
The nonprofit Thomas Wilson Dibblee Jr. Geological Foundation was later created to preserve and distribute his maps. His archives recently became part of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
“Tom could walk a ridge line and trace geology we lesser people just couldn’t see,” said Bob Norris, an emeritus professor of geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
