Public Outreach and Education

How did the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone get its dual name?

The explanation can be found in Vogt & Johnson (1975); on page 372 they write:

"There is also some ambiguity about the name in the literature. The northern fracture zone was first called 'Charlie' (Johnson,1967) after the weather ship that collected soundings in the area. Subsequently Fleming et al. (1970) introduced the name 'Gibbs.' The Board on Geographical names has ruled in favor of 'Charlie,' but both names now appear in the literature. At the suggestion of the senior author (Vogt), the compromise name 'Charlie Gibbs' was introduced by Laughton et al. (1972) and we adopt this name.”

The Gibbs name was taken from the name of the survey vessel USNS Josiah Willard Gibbs that made a survey of the fracture zone area in July 1968. It seems we have to credit the dual name “Charlie-Gibbs” to Peter R. Vogt of the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office and the first usage in a peer –reviewed paper is in Vogt & Johnson (1975).

References:

Fleming H.S., Cherkis N.Z, & Heirtzler J.R. (1970) The Gibbs fracture zone: A double fracture zone at 52°30’N in the Atlantic Ocean. Marine Geophysical Researches 1:37-45

Johnson G. L. (1967) North Atlantic fracture zones near 53°, Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 2: 445-447.

Laughton, A. S., et al. (1972) Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, vol. 12, pp. 1181-1i89, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Vogt P. R. & Johnson G.L. (1975) Transform faults and longitudinal flow below the Mid Oceanic
Ridge. Journal of Geophysical Research 80: 1399-1428,