Walter Alvarez

Walter Alvarez (born October 3, 1940) is a professor in the Earth and Planetary Science department at the University of California, Berkeley.

His work on tectonic paleomagnetism in Italy led to a study of the geomagnetic reversals recorded in Italian deep-sea limestones.

In addition, the Chicxulub crater off the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula was identified and is now regarded as the definitive evidence of a large impact.

In addition to his interest in extinction events and impacts, Alvarez has contributed to the understanding of Mediterranean tectonics, Roman geology and archeology, and the establishment of magnetostratigraphic correlations.

[7] Alvarez's course is open to all majors and grade levels and seeks to provide a broad understanding of the past, present and future.

In partnership with Microsoft Research, Alvarez developed a zoomable timeline called ChronoZoom,[11] which is a computer-graphical approach to visualizing and understanding time scales, and presenting vast quantities of historical information in a useful way.

Walter Alvarez at the original site where he discovered the dinosaur extinction evidence near Gubbio, Italy.
Alvarez helped to organize a meeting of Big Historians at the Geological Observatory at Coldigioco in Italy in 2010 which resulted in the establishment of the International Big History Association.
Alvarez presented "Earth History in the Broadest Possible Context" at Chevron Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus where ChronoZoom 2.0 was first publicly demonstrated in 2012.