Interview: PASCAL TARitS
INTERVIEW WITH PASCAL TARITS – TRANSCRIPT BY DAN RIZZO
Professor at IUEM/UBO, Scientific Advisor at IMAGIR sarl & MAPPEM Geophysics SAS, France
Overall summary: Pascal Tarits speaks about working with Jean Filloux and explains some of the research they did and how they obtained it. He also spends some time talking about how being French affected their work, especially in terms of language, and talks about Jean’s individual scientific accomplishments.0:17 - 1:10 Russ Snyder talks about meeting Jean at Scripps.
0:21 - 1:35 Pascal talks about first meeting and working with Jean and doing postdoctoral research for his thesis.
1:55 - 2:57 He mentions working at the Institut de Physique du Globe à Paris and talks about studying the hotspot in Tahiti with Jean.
2:58 - 3:51 He talks about TOPEX/Poseidon, the satellites involved, and leaving the project.
4:03 - 4:50 Pascal talks about the American Geophysical Union and giving the speech for Jean’s entrance to the union.
5:16 - 6:20 He talks about working at the bottom of the ocean, and how it’s very difficult and expensive to use instruments remotely in an inaccessible place. Pascal compares working at the bottom of the sea to working on Mars.
6:41 - 7:24 He talks about how it’s important to measure different data from the ocean, and specifically talks about electric currents and how they’re hard to measure with traditional methods but essential to understanding the oceans movements.
7:24 - 7:58 Speaks generally on oceanographers not developing new techniques and areas of study.
8:11 - 9:44 Pascal speaks on Jean's accomplishments with magnetotellurics and measuring data from the ocean floor, as well as in other scientific endeavors.
9:58 - 10:41 He talks about being a geophysicist and how his work with Jean was a major advancement in combining geophysics with oceanography, a practice that has continued.
10:53 - 11:49 Pascal talks about Jean as an inventor and how incredible his instruments are. Speaks on how being able to build them is impressive as most people either know the science of what the tool needs to do or how to put it together, not both.
12:06 - 13:23 He mentions Jean crossing the Atlantic, and seeing his fiberglass boat La Creuse.
13:28 - 14:34 Speaks about oceanography from the perspective of a geophysicist.
14:53 - 15:16 He defines oceanography.
15:16 - 16:13 Speaks more on oceanography and his own interests as well as Jean’s.
16:25 - 17:29 Pascal talks about how English was the most difficult thing in his work in the United States, and about speaking both French and English with Jean. He says that there were no comparable scientific difficulties.
17:44 - 18:55 He tells a story about Jean and coffee.
Part 2:
0:32 - 1:31 Speaks about La Creuse.
1:31 - 2:30 Speaks about Jean’s education in France 2:30 - 2:42 Briefly talks about Jean’s family.
2:42 - 3:06 Talks about being French and arriving in America.