Menard, H. William, Jr.

Menard, H. (Henry) William, Jr.

(1920–86) oceanographer; born in Fresno, Calif. He was an oceanographer with the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory (1949–55) before joining the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1955–78). He became director of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va. (1978–81). He was one of the first to use the aqualung to observe the geology of the ocean floor. His Pacific discoveries of submerged seamounts and vast seafloor displacements (1950) made him a pioneer in plate tectonics.