Geologist, b. 19 November 1922 (Southport, England), d. 5 December 1995 (San Diego, USA).
Keith Runcorn grew up in Southport, where he attended the King George V Grammar School. He entered Cambridge University in 1940 to study engineering and received his undergraduate degree in engineering in 1942. He spent World War II at the Radar Research and Development Establishment at Malvern, Worcestershire.
After the war Runcorn was appointed to a position in the Physics Department of Manchester University, where he initially worked on cosmic rays. After one year he changed to geophysics and began the study of the Earth's magnetic field. Having received his Ph.D. from Manchester University he returned to Cambridge University to become Assistant Director of Research in the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics.
Under Runcorn's initiative the department took up field and laboratory studies to determine the fossilized ancient directions of the Earth's magnetic field in sedimentary and igneous rocks from several parts of the world. The results of this work led Runcorn to accept Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift and determined much of the scientific work of his coming years, which was devoted to the synthesis of mounting evidence for continental drift. In 1962 he published his book Continental drift.
In 1956 Runcorn moved to King's College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (later the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne), where he remained until his retirement in 1988. As Director of the Department of Physics he made Newcastle an international centre of geophysics, to which visitors came from all parts of the globe.
After retirement from Newcastle Runcorn was appointed Professor of Physical Sciences at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and worked there until his death in San Diego in a robbery.
Runcorn received many honours during his lifetime. The Section on Planetary and Solar System Sciences of the European Geosciences Union established the Runcorn-Florensky Medal in 1998 for exceptional contributions to planetology, defined in its widest sense.
Hide, R. (2004) Keith Runcorn (1922 - 1995). European Geosciences Union. http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/egu_info/2004/runcorn.htm (accessed 24 August 2004).
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. (2004) Biography Stanley Keith Runcorn. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/vetlesen/recipients/1970/runcorn_bio.html (accessed 24 August 2004).