Dr. John K. Hall is a geological mapper. He began his career at WHOI, before doing his Ph.D. at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory from a drifting ice station in the Arctic Ocean. He became the first marine geophysicist in Israel in 1970, and retired after 35 years at the Geological Survey of Israel. He started the Israel National Bathymetric Survey, which maps in detail the seas and lakes in and around Israel. He has been involved in compiling regional and worldwide bathymetry and is the author of over 200 published articles, reports, books, maps and posters dealing with the regional seas, mapping algorithms, and the Arctic. He is the owner of a research hovercraft, a 13 m Griffon 2000T called the R/H Sabvabaa which has operated out of UNIS, a University Centre in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway since June 2008. The hovercraft was built to explore the most inaccessible parts of the Alpha Ridge in the Arctic Ocean using marine geophysical and geological tools. John also founded the American Friends of UNIS, to facilitate Americans conducting scientific research in Svalbard.
John spent a sabbatical from the Geological Survey of Israel as a CCOM Visiting Scholar from August 2003 through October 2004.
