Catherine Constable
Some scientists working at Scripps
do not study the ocean. One such scientist is Catherine Constable, a geophysicist
specializing in geomagnetism and paleomagnetism at the Institute
of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Although her office provides a
near-panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, her observations involve unseen
processes in the earth, specifically the earth's magnetic field.
At unpredictable intervals throughout time, the planet's magnetic field has reversed directions. If compasses had existed the last time that this occurred, approximately three-quarters of a million years ago, their needles would have pointed south instead of north. As part of her paleomagnetism research, Constable investigates this complex process, which is believed to arise from a self-sustaining dynamo process in the earth's outer core. She then builds theories on how the field has changed over time and how that relates to the evolution of the earth throughout its history.
"The outer core of the earth is fluid and consists almost entirely of iron," Constable explains. " The fluid moves around because of the planet's rotation. When you get electrically conducting fluid moving around amid a magnetic field, electric currents are generated. So there is some mechanism whereby those electric currents and the motion of the fluid in the outer core generate a magnetic field in a self-sustaining way. What I do is try to take observations of the magnetic field and provide useful information that one can put into models to understand how that works. And I do that with both paleomagnetic data, which comes from geological specimens, and with recent field observations." Constable seldom goes into the field, but uses the observations of others to devise new methods and mathematical techniques for looking at the data.
Born in Scotland and raised in Australia, Constable came to the United States and Scripps in 1983 as a graduate student in geophysics. After earning her Ph.D., she remained at Scripps to complete her postdoctoral research and then received a staff research position. In 1991 she was appointed to the faculty.
She became interested in science during high school and decided on a career in the profession during college, when she took classes in both geophysics and paleomagnetism. She believes that science is a career to be enjoyed, and feels that she made the right professional choice.
"I'm very lucky to be working with very reasonable and helpful people who encouraged me to do the right things at the right time."
© 1995