Paul Hoffman (1941 - )

Geologist Biography

Paul Felix Hoffman was born March 21, 1941 in Toronto Ontario Canada, and as a young boy he spent many hours exploring the world around him. Thanks to his parents encouragement to spend time outside, his interest in the natural world was instilled at an early age, and laid the foundation for an illustrious career in the geosciences.  

Like many young boys Paul was attracted to the world of rocks. He would spend many hours looking for and collecting rocks. Filling his pockets and storing his varied collection in shoe boxes shoved under his bed, he would trade specimens with his friends like they were hockey cards. A special treat, would be going to the Royal Ontario Museum and spend hours poring over the sparkling collection of rocks and minerals.  

Paul was one of those fortunate kids who always knew what he wanted to do with his life, and as soon as he finished high school, his life-long passion for geology began at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. His first summer job as a freshman brought on a four month adventure, mapping rocks in  northern Ontario with the Ontario Department of Mines in 1961. This was the first of innumerable field seasons for Paul. He received his B.Sc. from McMaster University in 1964, followed by his M.Sc. from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. Paul earned his Ph.D., also from Johns Hopkins University, in 1970.  

Shortly before graduation Paul joined the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) and spent the bulk of his 25 year career there mapping and decoding large tracts of geology in the Northwest Territories. In 1994 he joined the faculty in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.  

Paul started his career at a pivotal time in the geosciences. The ‘discovery’ of plate tectonics in the late 1960’s as the over-arching agent responsible for formation of new oceans and mountain ranges, spurred a furious re-examination of many facets of geology whose interrelationships had been previously poorly understood or ignored. Paul’s work was able to demonstrate that truly ancient geology from the deep past (Precambrian) could also be elegantly interpreted by plate tectonic theory. He has referred to plate tectonics as the “dance of the continents.” The evidence for it is preserved in the rock record, but it takes an exceptional geologist like Paul Hoffman to synthesize truly critical, but often subtle or disparate observations, and substantially advance the science.  

His career has been peppered with a long list of honours. Starting with the Geological Association of Canada’s Past-President’s Medal awarded in 1974, Paul has also received the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists R.J.W. Douglas Medal (1991) and the Geological Association of Canada’s Logan Medal (1992), representing those society’s highest honours. In the year of 1997, the Royal Society of Canada’s Willet G. Miller Medal was awarded to him, and last but not least, Paul received the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2009, arguably the world’s most prestigious honour in the Earth sciences. Paul Hoffman is currently the Adjunct Professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria and is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology Emeritus at Harvard University.