Pål Wessel

Norwegian geologist (1959–2024)

For the East German politician, see Paul Wessel.

Pål Wessel

Born| (1959-08-31)August 31, 1959

Sarpsborg, Norway[1]

Died| March 26, 2024(2024-03-26) (aged 64)

Nittedal, Norway

Other names| Paul Wessel
Alma mater|

* University of Oslo
* Columbia University

Known for| Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)[2]
Spouse| Jill Wessel[2]
Children| 2
Scientific career
Fields| Geoscience

Pål Wessel (August 31, 1959 – March 26, 2024)[3] pronounced as, and also known as Paul Wessel, was a professor of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He taught as a visiting professor at Sydney University in Australia and University of Oslo in Norway. Wessel was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.[4]

## Open source mapping tools and data

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In the 1980s, Wessel and Walter H. F. Smith created  Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), an open-source collection of computer software tools for processing and displaying geographic and Cartesian datasets.[5] They later supplemented this with the Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database (GSHHS) that they constructed from two public domain data sets, the World Data Bank II (WDB), also known as CIA Data Bank, and the World Vector Shoreline (WVS) data set.[6]

## Geological and geophysical research

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Areas in which Wessel conducted research included:

* Periodic co-pulsing of volcanic hot spots, including Hawaii, Yellowstone, Iceland, Easter Island, La Réunion, Tristan, the Galápagos, Samoa, Ontong Java, Tasmantid, the Society Islands, the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, St. Helena, Afar-Kenya, and others[7][8]
* Plate Tectonic Reconstructions and Hot Spot Fixity[9][10]
* Improvement of marine geophysical data sets via data analysis[11]
* Thermo-mechanical Evolution and Properties of Oceanic Lithosphere[12]
* Flexural Deformation of Lithosphere at Seamounts, Fracture Zones, and Trenches[13]

## See also

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* Generic Mapping Tools
* GSHHS
* Hawaii hotspot

## References

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1. ^ "In Memoriam: Pål Wessel". Department of Earth Sciences School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. University of Hawai'i at Manoa. June 23, 2024. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
2. ^ a b Wessel, Paul (March 17, 2024). "The Origins of the Generic Mapping Tools: From Table Tennis to Geoscience". Perspectives of Earth and Space Scientists. 5 (1). American Geophysical Union. doi:10.1029/2023CN000231.
3. ^ "Pål Wessel har gått bort" [Pål Wessel has passed away]. Varingen (in Norwegian). April 11, 2024. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
4. ^ "Geological Society of America - Fellowship". Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
5. ^ Wessel, P.; Smith, W. H. F. (1995). "New version of the generic mapping tools released". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 76 (33). Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union: 329. Bibcode:1995EOSTr..76..329W. doi:10.1029/95EO00198. ISSN 0002-8606. OCLC 1479928.
6. ^ Wessel, Pål; Smith, Walter H. F. (April 2001). "A Global, Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-Resolution Shoreline Database". Journal of Geophysical Research. 101 (B4). Richmond, Va: William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press: 8741–8743. Bibcode:1996JGR...101.8741W. doi:10.1029/96JB00104. ISSN 0148-0227. OCLC 2396688. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2010. Alt URL
7. ^ Mjelde, Rolf; Wessel, Paul; Müller, R. Dietmar (October 2010). "Global pulsations of intraplate magmatism through the Cenozoic". Lithosphere. 2 (5). Boulder, Colorado: Geological Society of America: 361–376. Bibcode:2010Lsphe...2..361M. doi:10.1130/L107.1. ISSN 1941-8264. OCLC 302419952.
8. ^ O'Hanlon, Larry (September 22, 2010). "Earth's pulse felt at hot spots". New York: Discovery Communications, Inc. Archived from the original on November 13, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
9. ^ Wessel, Paul (August 9, 2008). "Hotspotting: Principles and properties of a plate tectonic Hough transform". Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. 9 (Q08004). Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union and the Geochemical Society: n/a. Bibcode:2008GGG.....908004W. doi:10.1029/2008GC002058. ISSN 1525-2027. OCLC 41417292. Retrieved December 24, 2010.
10. ^ Wessel, Pål (1993). "Observational Constraints on Models of the Hawaiian Hot Spot Swell". Journal of Geophysical Research. 98 (B9). Richmond, Va: William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press: 16, 095–16, 104. Bibcode:1993JGR....9816095W. doi:10.1029/93JB01230. ISSN 0148-0227. OCLC 2396688. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2010. Alt URL
11. ^ Wessel, Pål; Becker, J. M. (July 2008). "Interpolation using a generalized Green's function for a spherical surface spline in tension". Geophysical Journal International. 174 (1). Oxford: Blackwell Science: 21–28. Bibcode:2008GeoJI.174...21W. doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2008.03829.x. ISSN 1365-246X. OCLC 48413162.
12. ^ Wessel, P. (1992). "Thermal Stresses and the Bimodal Distribution of Elastic Thickness Estimates of the Oceanic Lithosphere". Journal of Geophysical Research. 97 (B10). Richmond, Va: William Byrd Press for Johns Hopkins Press: 4, 177–14, 193. Bibcode:1992JGR....9714177W. doi:10.1029/92JB01224. ISSN 0148-0227. OCLC 2396688. Retrieved December 24, 2010.
13. ^ Kim, Seung-Sep; Wessel, Paul (August 2010). "Flexure modelling at seamounts with dense cores". Geophysical Journal International. 182 (2). Oxford: Blackwell Science: 583–598. Bibcode:2010GeoJI.182..583K. doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2010.04653.x. ISSN 1365-246X. OCLC 48413162.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Wessel, Pål (November 28, 2010). "Pål (Paul) Wessel". Honolulu: School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Retrieved December 22, 2010.: Pål Wessel's GG/SOEST/UHM web page.
* Wessel, Paul (November 1, 2010). "The GMT Home Page". Honolulu: School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
* "GSHHS A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database". Boulder, Colorado: National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). November 1, 2010. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
* Wessel, Paul (July 21, 2010). "Geoware Online Store". Retrieved August 30, 2011. "Geoware specializes in using GMT to make regional and global topographic maps of exceptional quality, and developing custom applications written in C or Unix shells. We also distribute the GMT Companion CD-R and DVD-Rs which provide the service of combining many public-domain data sets and software on easy-to-install CD- or DVD-Rs for both Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms (New versions as of July 15, 2010). Finally, we also distribute TTT, the tsunami travel time estimator for bathymetric grids."

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* United States
* Israel

Academics|

* ORCID
* Scopus
* Google Scholar