John West Wells (July 15, 1907 – January 12, 1994) was an American paleontologist, biologist and geologist who focused his research on corals.
[3] During 1954, Wells was granted a Fulbright lecturing position at the University of Queensland,[5] spending many months studying corals of the Great Barrier Reef.
[6] During this period he established a productive working relationship with Dorothy Hill of the University of Queensland, who was the leading Australian expert on reef geology.
[7] Wells and Dorothy Hill would jointly prepare nine sections on the Coelenterata for the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology published in 1956.
Astronomers and geophysicists paid attention to his “Coral Growth and Geochronometry” paper, which demonstrated their theory that the Earth's rotation was slowing down.
Wells' paper generated a great amount of research on the incremental growth of skeletal material in several groups of invertebrates.
Those which grow in seas where the temperature varies much with the seasons often show annual growth rings like trees.
Wells found that some also show daily ridges of growth, which can be counted with a good hand lens costing perhaps $10.
In 1975 he travelled to the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands and helped identify six new species of azooxanthellate corals.
[9] John Wells' long-standing interests and research into local and cultural history, especially that of upstate New York, were able to flourish in retirement.
The summer home on Cayuga Lake, that Wells and his wife established in 1948, would host students, colleagues, and other friends from around the world, for decades.
Wells married Elizabeth (“Pie”) Baker, of Ithaca, in late 1932, after meeting her at Cornell University.