He went back to the University of Southern California in 1966-67, and meanwhile, in 1965, he signed up with the U.S. Army in its intelligence unit, where he eventually became second lieutenant. In 1967, he joined the U.S. Navy as a naval oceanographic liaison officer, making lieutenant junior grade. For this stint, he was sent to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a private, not-for-profit research organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After his naval assignment was completed, he decided to stay on the East Coast and work at Woods Hole, continuing his research in marine geology and ocean engineering.
Studied Plate Tectonics
Joining Woods Hole as a research associate in ocean engineering in 1970, Ballard also pursued his doctorate degree at the University of Rhode Island. He began studying plate tectonics, which was a vanguard theory at the time, and earned his Ph.D. in 1974 with a dissertation on the subject. Plate tectonics suggests that the Earth's land masses are divided into sections, or plates, that move independently of the planet's mantle. This movement causes shifting of the land, which results in earthquakes at the boundaries (fault lines) and can also cause the shape of the land masses to change over time.
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