Ralph von Frese

Who is Ralph von Frese?

Ralph R. B. von Frese is an American geophysicist at the Ohio State University who identified the Wilkes Land mass concentration in Antarctica in collaboration with Laramie Potts.

In 1969, von Frese obtained a B.A. cum laude from Park College in physics, mathematics and German. He earned M.Sc degrees in physics and geophysics and a Ph.D. in geophysics from Purdue University. He has taught at OSU since 1982.

He and Potts used gravity measurements by NASA's GRACE satellites to identify a 200 mile wide mass concentration. This mass anomaly is centered within a larger ring-like structure visible in radar images of the land surface beneath the Antarctic ice cap. This combination led these researchers to speculate that it may have resulted from a large impact event.