2011

®

GSA Medals & Awards

Presented at the

123rd Annual Meeting of the

Geological Society of America S

9 October 2011

Minneapolis, Minnesota 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

RIP RAPP of evidence to bear upon the problem. The to various stratigraphic sections throughout resulting report, published in 2004, describes the state in order to instruct them in the ARCHAEOLOGICAL evidence that the bones and artifacts were proper documentation of soils and sediments GEOLOGY AWARD together in a secondary deposit, leaving the within but also apart from the complexities antiquity of the artifacts unresolved. At the introduced by human occupation. In 2009 Presented to same time, the Burnham project provided an Don went a step further by publishing Don G. Wyckoff important record of Oklahoma’s Ice-Age past, several student papers in Geoarchaeology and it is a benchmark as the first concentrated of the Cross Timbers, Memoir 13 of the effort to break the so-called “Clovis barrier” Oklahoma Anthropological Society. His lithic in Oklahoma. In 2007, Don led another technology course required two semesters, the interdisciplinary team in investigations at first to learn the vast literature dedicated to central Oklahoma’s Powell Farm site, another the topics of geology, fracture mechanics, and mid-Wisconsinan pond deposit with complex human tool using behavior, and the second late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits to learn how to apply that knowledge to a overlying it. nodule of rock. One of the epiphanies to come out of Don’s passion for prehistory has taken Don’s experiences at Burnham and other him down many roads, and in each case he late-Quaternary fossil sites was the need to arrived with an eye on the fundamentals of better understand the modern distribution of archaeological geology, scholarship, and terrestrial gastropods. The resulting Southern mentoring. We believe his efforts reflect Plains Gastropod Survey conducted by Don the spirit and the standards of the award he represents a quantified baseline survey of is receiving, and that both the Geological Don G. Wyckoff terrestrial gastropod assemblages along a 700 Society of America and past award recipients Oklahoma Museum of Natural History km transect spanning three physiographic should be proud to recognize him in this provinces and four biotic districts. During way. It is therefore with great pleasure that 1995 and 1996, more than 35,000 shells I introduce Don G. Wyckoff as the 29th assignable to 26 taxa of terrestrial gastropods recipient of the Rip Rapp Award. Citation by Jesse A.M. Ballenger were sampled by Don and his colleagues. The and Stance Hurst results of this study revealed an east-to-west shift in the composition of land snail taxa, and Response by Don G. Wyckoff The 2011 recipient of the Rip Rapp it provides an important reference for studying Having former students and colleagues Award in archaeological geology is Don Quaternary fossil assemblages. From 1997 to nominate me for this award is deeply G. Wyckoff. Don completed his Ph.D. in 2005 this research team collected land snails appreciated. To actually receive this award Quaternary Studies at Washington State from Oklahoma to the Canadian border, from is even more gratifying, yet very humbling University in 1980 under the direction of the Ozarks to the Southern Plains, and south given the list of previous recipients. I Peter Mehringer. His distinguished career into central Texas. A book compiling all these certainly don’t consider myself in their spans 50 years of research concentrated on findings is currently underway. league. So in accepting this award, I express the Southern Plains and Osage Prairie, where One of Don’s most significant my thanks to the geoarchaeological decision he has discovered, collected, and interpreted contributions to Plains archaeology began makers and especially to three colleagues critically important pieces of the late in 1962 when he led excavations at the who, since 1985, have played key roles in Quaternary environmental and archaeological deeply stratified Packard site in northeastern our combined efforts to understand what was records, and where his emphasis on Oklahoma. The site included an assemblage going on in Oklahoma since mid-Wisconsinan geoarchaeology will guide the interests of lanceolate-shaped projectile points (now times. Brian Carter, at Oklahoma State of future archaeologists and Quaternary known as the Packard Complex) beneath University, has been a constant source of scientists alike. Dalton tools. With the advent of AMS dating, knowledge and questions as we opened up One of Don’s most significant Don went back to the Packard site collections stratified deposits tucked away in slopes in contributions to the late Quaternary prehistory and was able to show that Plains-oriented the central and northwestern parts of the of the Southern Plains unfolded at the groups were visiting eastern Oklahoma by Rolling Red Plains. Likewise, archaeologist- Burnham site in 1986, where stone tool debris approximately 9,800 B.P., immediately before rancher Pete Thurmond consistently proved was found in stratigraphic association with or during the widespread expansion of Dalton to be an astute observer and synthesizer as a 33,000-year-old Bison alleni skull. The populations in the region. we recorded profiles and collected cores from resulting multi-year, inter-disciplinary project However, if we were to measure Pleistocene and Holocene dunes and alluvial led by Don aimed to reconcile the association Don’s contributions based on how he deposits in the Washita River watershed of extinct faunas and artifacts 20,000 years allocated his time and resources, his greatest of western Oklahoma. Finally, Jim Theler, before the appearance of Clovis, no small accomplishment would have to be his University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, has task in light of the complex stratigraphic recruitment and training of students. As an enlightened all of us with his knowledge of situation at the site. Relying on information instructor, Don stressed the development of gastropods and its application to paleosols from geomorphology, geochronology, pollens, skills acquired first-hand in the field. In his and sediments dating back to over 150,000 snail ecology, and mammalian faunas, Don graduate-level courses in geoarchaeology, he years ago. and his team were able to bring multiple lines dedicated his weekends to escorting students

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

My interests in geology, pedology, for certain kinds of chipped stone tools, a strong emphasis on tephra, other eolian, and past environments were initiated and his insights spurred me to continually seek and alluvial processes in soil formation and sustained by Robert E. Bell, Peter Mehringer, better information on the bedrock sources of landscape development. I am indebted to these and Henry Smith. Dr. Bell gave me a chance such materials. Such research is ongoing as scholars and teachers. I thank my Oklahoma to run archaeological salvage projects in now I am analyzing 8000 to 9000 year old University anthropology colleagues for Oklahoma, and the first two sites dug revealed artifacts from a southern Oklahoma site where allowing me to develop and teach courses multiple occupations buried in diverse quartzite formed and exotic chert clasts were in past environments and human society, terrace settings. In addition to forcing me deposited in middle Cretaceous beach sands. geoarchaeology, and lithic technology. The to become concerned with alluviation and Frank Leonhardy supported my application to students proved worthy and demanding, and taphonomic issues, the recovered artifacts the Ph.D. program in Quaternary Studies at it was a pleasure to try to keep up with their were primarily of chipped stone. Given Washington State University, and there Pete expectations. To have my efforts recognized Dr. Bell’s early study (1941 M.A. thesis, Mehringer introduced me to palynology and in the kind words and thoughts expressed by University of Chicago) of the prehistoric raised my awareness of “secrets of the past” Stance and Jesse is most touching. I thank you use of particular kinds of knappable stone while Henry Smith taught pedology with all for this very special recognition.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

GILBERT H. CADY to remodel their dioramas. Twenty-five years From that moment on, I was fascinated by later, one of Bill’s students still remembers his black rocks. Later travelling through the AWARD “magnetic appeal” while explaining these new Appalachians, I saw red rocks for the first Presented to ideas to his graduate class. time, equally fascinating. These two, the red William A. Dimichele Moving to the Smithsonian in 1985, Bill and the black, have dominated my research continued work on Coal Forest dynamics. for the past 35 years. Drawing on his exceptionally broad readings As John Donne once, famously, wrote in theoretical biology, he explored how “No man is an island, entire of itself; every species distribution in time and space could man is a piece of the continent.” We rarely be explained in terms of reproductive biology, hear the latter part of that quotation, which, biomass costs, and resource partitioning. in its entirety, encapsulates modern science. However, he also became keenly aware of the My “island”, shared with my collaborators, “inherent strangeness of coal plants” (as one is part of the greater “continent” of science, of his colleagues put it) and how the present so much of which we accept, with due is not always a reliable key to the past. In caution, so that we can progress in our own response, Bill explored coal mines and natural small fight against ignorance. I can take full exposures across the United States (from credit for little—my whole career has been Texas to Illinois and the Appalachians) to learn collaborative, learning from others, sharing what geology could contribute to paleoecology and evaluating ideas, all of us asking, to at a time when few paleobotanists were the best of our abilities, “what’s this all engaged in field studies. about?” Some colleagues have played special William A. Dimichele Through that field program, Bill became roles. My thesis advisor, Tom Phillips, with Smithsonian Institute an advocate of climate change as the major whom I still work, taught me to love this controlling influence on Carboniferous life and work. My friend, John Nelson; peat accumulation and stratal cyclicity. In no one has taught me more about how to this work, Bill was again a pioneer. As one study the earth, about personal integrity, Citation by W. John Nelson colleague has commented, “Bill did not jump about dirt-track racing. Blaine Cecil, friend and Howard Falcon-Lang aboard the climate change bandwagon; rather and mentor, introduced me to the principle This year’s recipient of the Gilbert his vision allowed him to help set it in motion, of total evidence and to geology as richly H. Cady Award is Bill DiMichele of the way in advance of its present popularity”. conceptual. Hermann Pfefferkorn, a visionary Smithsonian Institution, one of the world’s Without doubt, paleoclimate research has gentleman whose precocious insights helped leading paleobiologists. In the course of his really played to Bill’s great strength as guide much of my work. Add some hard- prolific thirty-year career, Bill has made huge a “renaissance man”, being so adept at driving, ever-questioning, mostly younger, contributions to our understanding of the collaborating with experts from a wide colleagues, Richard Bateman, John Calder, Carboniferous peat-forming ecosystems and range of disciplines including stratigraphers, Cortland Eble, Scott Elrick, Howard Falcon- hence the origin of coal. Indeed, his name is sedimentologists, geochemists, soil scientists, Lang, Bob Gastaldo, Bob Hook, Hans Kerp, so synonymous with the ‘Coal Forests’ that it and micropalaeontologists. We are therefore Cindy Looy, Spencer Lucas, Isabel Montañez, is almost impossible to write a paper on that delighted that the GSA has chosen to honor Neil Tabor, who have given me their time, topic without citing half a dozen of his 110+ someone who has done so much to advance insights, and infusions of their great energy. publications. A brilliant researcher, Bill is also coal geology in so many ways. I am especially indebted to my Smithsonian a warm, collegial and humble person, who associate, Dan Chaney. Finally, I owe immeasurable thanks to my family, who have nurtures the careers of young scientists and Response by William A. Dimichele fosters open, collaborative networks through given me strength through trials, tested the which science flourishes. Officers and Members of the Coal depths of my wisdom, and continue to teach Bill began his research career as a Division, friends and colleagues, me much. doctoral student at the University of Illinois, I would like to thank the Coal Division Long ago, at the University of Champaign-Urbana, in the late 1970s, of the GSA for this award, named for one Washington, one of my colleagues hoped that working in the lab of Prof. Tom Phillips of the great coal geologists, who served a 50 years hence he would be cited without (himself a recipient of the Cady Award in great geological survey, that of Illinois, with attribution in every introductory text book in 1992). Together they developed new whole- which I have been associated since graduate his field. To do work worth remembering, that plant reconstructions for Carboniferous school. I am grateful to many people of had become a truism seems a worthy goal. lycopods that emphasized the weird biology that organization, and of my alma mater, I should be so fortunate, but that judgment of these extinct plants. Bill teamed up the University of Illinois, for teaching me lies outside of my lifetime. In this lifetime, I with Phillips again while a professor at the the basics of geology and botany, and for would like to thank John Nelson and Howard- University of Washington, Seattle, from modeling scientific curiosity, before sending Falcon Lang for their generous remarks, and 1979-1985, to pioneer studies of coal-swamp me out to join them on a path through, and all the Coal Division for their kind consideration. ecology. Their work caused a fundamental around, coal and the late Paleozoic tropical shift in the field, integrating neo-ecological world. concepts into paleobotany for the first time The first coal I ever saw was weathering and prompting museums around the world around my grandmother’s disused coal chute.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS E.B. BURWELL, JR., AWARD Presented to Lynn Highland and Peter Bobrowsky

for “The Landslide Handbook: A guide to understanding landslides.” (2008); USGS Circular 1325.

Citation by David H. Huntley The 2011 E.B. Burwell Jr. Award winning publication by Lynn Highland of the U.S. Geological Survey and Peter Bobrowsky of the Lynn Highland Peter T. Bobrowsky Geological Survey of Canada (“The Landslide Handbook: A Guide USGS Denver Geological Survey of Canada to Understanding Landslides, 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1325, 129 p. Available online at: http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1325/) is an innovative volume targeted at the non-technical community charged with emergency management, landslide mitigation and public and endorsement provided during the nomination process by an education in both developed and developing countries, including extraordinary list of international specialists ensured that the peer lay persons interested in a comprehensive introduction to landslide recognition and acknowledgement that this publication warranted hazards. The Handbook features detailed graphics, illustrations and was duly received through accreditation of the engineering geology photos from all over the world to emphasize the global nature of community. The authors and this volume will continue to serve the best landslide hazards and threats to life and property; and so that the user interests of the landslide community for years to come by educating can more easily visualize landslide processes and impacts, along with future populations and reducing the risks associated with landslide methods of mapping, monitoring and mitigation. hazards. The Landslide Handbook is a globally relevant text. The volume was first released in English as a publication under the USGS Circular Series and posted online through the USGS website Brief biographies of the co-authors in a downloadable format, and an additional 1,000 hard copies were Lynn Highland is a Geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey printed and distributed free of charge. Since 2008, the Handbook Landslide Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center, located in has been translated, with minor additions to suit specific audiences, Golden, Colorado. She began her career as an Anthropologist for into Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese editions. the USGS Earthquake Program and after obtaining a Masters degree The Chinese version was translated by Dr. Fawu Wang, Shimane in Geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder, became University, Japan; and with the assistance of Dr. Yueping Yin is Coordinator of the National Landslide Information Center and provides available in print and online through the China Geological Survey. outreach support for the USGS Landslide Program and resources for A Japanese version, translated by Dr. Tamotsu Nozaki is available landslide education and information. online through the Japan Landslide Society’s website. The Spanish Peter Bobrowsky is a Senior Research Scientist with the version, translated by the World Bank’s Disaster Global Facility for Geological Survey of Canada and has published widely on a variety Disaster Reduction and Recovery, Washington D.C., is accessible of topics including surficial mapping, aggregate resources, till online at the World Bank website, and in print from the World Bank. geochemistry, paleoseismology and landslides. He has served on The Portuguese version was translated by Dr. Paulo Rogerio, from several organizations and societies including Secretary General of Pomerode, Brazil, and was edited and printed by the World Bank. International Union of Geological Sciences, International Director of A second English edition targeting a Canadian audience is now in the Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences and Vice President of the development for release by the Geological Survey of Canada. Geological Association of Canada. Dr. Bobrowsky also works and It gives me great pleasure to have nominated this unique effort lectures in numerous countries around the world and often collaborates for the prestigious E.B. Burwell Jr. Award within the Engineering with USGS colleagues. Geology Division of the Geological Society of America. The support

Response by Lynn Highland displacement, and negative effects on the texts available that are directed towards a and Peter Bobrowsky natural environment. technical audience that have been published Although considerable literature and by government agencies, academic institutes Landslides occur throughout the research on landslides is generally available, and the consulting community. Additionally, world, under all climatic conditions and little of this information is accessible in many other specific publications deal with terrains, cost billions in monetary losses, a format that can assist lay audiences. topical landslide information such as landslide and are responsible for thousands of deaths Moreover nothing comprehensive at an mapping, engineering, mitigation, monitoring and injuries each year. Often, they cause introductory level has been published since and safety. However, no one textbook long-term economic disruption, population the 1980’s. There are a number of excellent

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS addresses all the topics collectively under a emergency managers and decision makers of our work as part of the nomination single cover in a public-friendly format. by taking the positive step of encouraging process. We are also very grateful to the EGD To fill this outreach gap, the International awareness of available options and recourse in evaluation committee for bestowing this Consortium on Landslides endorsed a regard to potential landslide hazard and threat award on our work. We are positive that their project proposal entitled “A Best Practices to life and property around the world. decision was not easy when comparing our Handbook for Landslide Mitigation” in 2002. We are both fortunate and thankful that work to other worthy candidate nominations. As the project evolved, the aim became our respective employers, the US Geological Within the geotechnical community, the E.B. more comprehensive and targeted at the non- Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada, Burwell Jr. Award of the GSA Engineering technical community that is normally charged provided support for the past few years for Geology Division carries with it considerable with emergency management, landslide this project to see completion. prestige and recognition. We cannot imagine mitigation, and public education in both We are extremely grateful to David a greater and more professional satisfying nod developed and developing countries, including Huntley and the professional—technical of approval from our peer community. Many those lay persons interested in landslide supporters (Jerry DeGraff, Keith Turner, thanks to our fellow engineering geologists hazards. The Handbook aims to help the Laurance Donnelly, John Clague and Owen from around the world who find this volume general public, home-owners, communities, White) who provided a positive endorsement of use in their daily work.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

GEORGE P. complex tectonic environments on Earth. First and foremost, I would like to thank Wiki was the first to recognize the critical John Sclater for luring me into the general WOOLLARD AWARD role played by advancing and retreating plate field of geophysics, persuading me to apply Presented to boundaries during collisional events. Wiki to the PhD program at MIT, and as my PhD Leigh H. Royden is also well recognized for her work on the advisor leaving to go on sabbatical for my channelized flow of a weak crustal layer first year of graduate school so that I was left (Royden, JGR, 1996; Clark and Royden, on my own to discover that geology was at Geology, 2000). Wiki’s contribution was to least as interesting as geophysics. I must also provide the mathematical background for thank Bill Brace who hired me as an assistant basally driven three-dimensional flow within professor at MIT, and Tom Jordan who an idealized crust with a laterally invariant, sheparded my tenure case through the perils depth-dependent Newtonian viscosity. One of the MIT Science Council. Finally, I thank impressive outcome of her calculations was Clark Burchfiel, who taught me most of what the demonstration that a steep-sided, flat- I know about geology, and even more about topped plateau is expected in the case of a geology that I have forgotten. crust with a low-viscosity zone, exactly as is When I was young, I was frequently observed in Tibet and the Altiplano. Entire asked whether I considered myself to be conferences have been devoted to a discussion a geologist or a geophysicist, but I never of crustal channel flow, and the Geological could decide which I was. Now that I am Society of London published a multi-author farther down the road of aging geoscientist, book on the topic. Wiki has been a frequent I am no longer asked this question very Leigh H. Royden speaker at GSA meetings and has been a often. Instead, geologists assume that I am a Massachusetts Institute Technology highly successful mentor. As a final note, I geophysicist and geophysicists assume that have observed that Wiki is frequently selected I am a geologist. I am not at all sure that as a keynote speaker at the conferences she this is particularly flattering but I hope that attends. After her talk, the scientific discussion receipt of the Woollard Award will clarify this Citation by Walter D. Mooney inevitably ends up centered on the ideas she point—I am officially a geophysicist/ …. or Prof. Leigh (Wiki) H. Royden of MIT has introduced. She’s a person who captures maybe still not? has been selected as the 2011 Woollard an audience’s scientific imagination. For all of Lastly, on this auspicious anniversary Awardee by the Geophysics Division. Wiki these reasons it is a great pleasure to present of the Geophysics Division of the GSA, I has made major contributions to the study Wiki Royden of MIT with the 2011 Woollard would like bear in mind the sage advice of of geologic processes through quantitative Award from the Geophysics Division of the George Thompson, the first-ever recipient of geophysical modeling. A native of Palo Alto, GSA. the GSA’s Woollard Award. George was the California, her father, Halsey Royden, was first to write and congratulate me, and as we exchanged emails reminded me that the best a math professor at Stanford University. Response by Leigh H. Royden Wiki’s interest in a quantitative approach way to give a five minute acceptance speech to science may have been inspired by him. It is a great honor to receive the George is to stop after four minutes. And with that She completed her A.B. degree (physics) P. Woollard Award for Geophysics, and I sound advice in mind, I shall end by thanking at Harvard and received her Ph.D. at MIT thank you all very much. I especially want you all once again for this very great honor. in 1982. She is the recipient of numerous to thank Tom Jordan and Walter Mooney for awards, including a Presidential Young their efforts to compose and deliver a most Investigator Award in 1985, the Donath flattering citation. I have been extremely Medal (Young Scientist Award) from the fortunate to have had many excellent GSA in 1990, and election to Fellowship colleagues, collaborators and students, who of the AGU in 2004. This Geophysical are far too numerous to mention here, but I Division award recognizes Wiki’s impressive must single out just a few. scientific achievements and I highlight just a few these. Certainly one of Wiki’s first big scientific contributions was her paper on the thermal subsidence of the rifted continental margin of NE North America. Today we view the process of thermal subsidence as so familiar that it is sometimes forgotten that this two-stage process was developed and quantified in this now-classic paper. A second landmark paper is entitled “Evolution of retreating subduction boundaries formed during continental collision” (Royden, 1993). Wiki applied her analysis to the Mediterranean region, easily one of the most

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

between Bakersfield College and the nearby jokes, integrating geology and/or geology BIGGS AWARD FOR California State University branch, and she jokes into non-geological conversations, EXCELLENCE IN developed many new courses. She organized explaining the geology of regions I am the campus Geology Club, leads two field familiar with, and trying to puzzle out the EARTH SCIENCE trips per semester, assigns and corrects written geological history of places I’m unfamiliar assignments, quizzes, and exams every semester. with… when I hike up a mountain, I conjure TEACHING This degree of hard work and dedication would up images of the depositional environment Presented to Natalie Bursztyn be commendable if she taught at a private the rocks I’m walking across formed in rather college with virtually unlimited resources; than staying aware of wherever I actually however, what makes these accomplishments happen to be. truly amazing is that she has excelled at a state I think that when I teach I try to project college under extreme budget constraints, and or share this excitement and the thought while teaching classes with enrollments of process involved with the students. I want 100+! She is a source of inspiration and she them to see in a rock, not the mineral crystals always takes time to listen to students’ concerns, or clasts (although that is important), but the and as a result, has received the campus-wide deep time and history in it. Advisor of the Year Award twice. I also love to explore the interconnected One theme that comes through repeatedly nature, repeating patterns, evolution and in the numerous nomination letters submitted history of geology itself. To think of how is that Natalie has made an enormous impact in recently plate tectonics was accepted as the lives of many students—from giving them a theory and how long ago deep time and confidence in themselves to strive for more evolution were understood by the scientific than they ever thought they could achieve, for community, and to see the latter become making geology field experiences accessible to perceived as more and more controversial Natalie Bursztyn Bakersfield College students with physical disabilities, to inspiring amongst the general population is them to become geologists. Her nominators disappointing. I believe that teaching critical use terms such as: dedicated, respected, gifted thinking is our strongest defense. Citation by Eric Hiatt teacher, tenacious, and amazing individual. Critical thinking comes naturally in It is a privilege to nominate Natalie She has a reputation for accomplishing teaching geology—as long as we don’t have Bursztyn for the Biggs Earth Science Teaching anything she puts her mind to, and--always- a time machine at our disposal, the open- Award. I have known Natalie for about 12 -for truly loving teaching. One of her ended aspect of resolving the evolution years; she was an undergraduate student in nominators noted that she has made a bigger of landscapes requires careful and critical my Sedimentology and Stratigraphy course at impact on campus than any other professor. analysis of all the evidence and possible Queen’s University, Canada. She received her A great teacher first and foremost is interpretations. From this standpoint, I see B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Queen’s. As a an exemplary role model. Natalie is, at her geology as a fundamental course for all student, Natalie had an infectious enthusiasm core, an amazing role model for students. students to take, and teach it not as though and positive attitude that was evident to the Her enthusiasm, energy, and drive are readily they will become geologists, but so they faculty then–characteristics that she continues apparent to her students. In their nomination develop skills necessary for success in all to display today. letters, Natalie’s peers stress that she is their college classes and the real world Natalie taught at Bakersfield College respected and admired on campus and is an beyond. So they appreciate the awesome beginning in 2005, and has always employed inspiring teacher. Natalie never stands still— planet they live on and understand that an interactive teaching style; she has a and recently has begun a new chapter in her every component of their iPhone was reputation for being able to keep students career; she has just begun a Ph.D. in Geology mined, refined and transported somewhere highly engaged and interested. Natalie at Utah State University. to be assembled, packed and transported is known for making connections with Congratulations, Natalie—it is frustrating somewhere else before they bought it. So that students and for her ability to make complex to try to describe in a few words such an they rubberneck as they drive by a road-cut concepts understandable, which speaks to her exemplary life dedicated to others, but I have and ask themselves how the outcrop formed effectiveness as a skilled teacher. She loves never met anyone more deserving of the Biggs and maybe even come to a screeching halt teaching geology in the field and regularly Earth Science Teaching Award. on the side of the road to ask the person organizes field trips for her students. Based examining it with a hand lens if they are a on these field experiences, students note that Response by Natalie Bursztyn geologist and then tell this startled geologist Natalie’s courses have been “the best thing I am truly honored to be the recipient of all about that super fun geology class they that has happened to them…” during their this award—though every rationale listed in took in college… true story. college experience. my nomination I did because I enjoyed doing And so, with this passion for teaching Natalie is a force of nature. During her it, I wanted to do it, or because I felt it was in mind, and geology, and stewardship for time at Bakersfield College she wrote three lab of great value to the students, the school, or our only habitable planet, I thank you for this manuals, authored a book “Geology of Kern the education system in general. Anyone who amazing recognition. I am embarking on a new County”, she wrote many of the new Geology stepped forward wanting to learn, no matter journey in pursuit of this passion of mine, and curriculum standards for the state of California, their circumstance, I’d help. Together we can am now two months into a PhD in geology and spearheaded development of a cooperative make it happen, we just need to figure out how. geoscience education … being advised by a agreement and effective transfer of credits I love geology, I love making geology former recipient of this very award.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

MARY C. RABBITT Sally first encountered geology at San nearly as valuable to historians of chemistry Jose State University where she was a student as to historians of geology. HISTORY AND from 1964-1967. Her goal was earning a In addition to her scholarly work, Sally PHILOSOPHY OF California teaching credential. This required Newcomb has been noteworthy for her a more diverse major in physical science than presence in the discipline. For example, in GEOLOGY AWARD chemistry alone. While at San Jose State she 2001 at the GSA meeting in Boston, she was took a number of geology courses, in addition the co-convener of a Pardee Symposium Presented to to those in physical chemistry. She reports and two topical sessions on “Ophiolites as Sally Newcomb that, “I was ‘hooked’ when, on a week’s field Problem and Solution in the Evolution of trip to Death Valley, the geologist gathered us Geological Thought.” In 2006 at the GSA at the top of Golden Canyon and ‘read’ it like meeting in Philadelphia she co-led a field a textbook.” trip to sites in the city displaying research With her teaching certificate in hand, collections in the history of geology and Sally began teaching both chemistry and paleontology. She has also served this geology, in a variety of settings beginning division as its chair in 2001. Similarly she with the Palo Alto, California public schools was a councilor for the History of Earth and culminating in an eighteen-year career Sciences Society in 2004-2006. More at Prince George’s Community College in informally, as I can attest, she has also Maryland. Deepening her knowledge of provided ready assistance to those who ask chemistry in its relation to geology was her questions about laboratory procedures in a master’s degree in Geochemistry and the geological sciences. Education, earned in 1980 from the University To do all this of course has required of Maryland, College Park. some sacrifice. As she was becoming more Sally Newcomb’s first publication in the active in exploring the history of geology, Sally Newcomb history of the earth sciences was an article in she gave up performing as a musician, the Silver Springs, Maryland Ambix in 1986 entitled “Laboratory evidence cello and the lute being her instruments. I of silica solution supporting Wernerian can only feel some satisfaction that our field theory.” In 1987 she earned her second has provided her equal pleasures to those of master’s degree, this time in the history and music. I’m pleased to introduce to you Sally Citation by Sandra Herbert philosophy of science. Her thesis, done under Newcomb, the recipient of the Mary Rabbitt the direction of Stephen Brush, was entitled award for 2011. Sally Newcomb has been one of the “Contributions of British Experimentalists individuals whose efforts over the last thirty to the Discipline of Geology: 1780-1920.” years have led to the currently vibrant state Twenty two years later, in 2009, she published Response by Sally Newcomb within our field of the history and philosophy The World in a Crucible: Laboratory Practice If I said I stood on the shoulders of of geology. Partly Sally’s contribution and Geological Theory at the Beginning of giants in the history of geology, a number of has been from her publications; partly her Geology. It appeared as Special Paper 449 them might object. It could be uncomfortable contribution has been from her presence. As from the press of the Geological Society of for them, because many of them are actually for all of us, her contributions sprang from her America. The book explores what Newcomb in this room. But of course, I do. Geology is life. In my remarks I will try to show how her termed the paradox that so many geologists known for its mentor relationships. Perhaps life and her contributions fit together. initially rejected: the Huttonian theory of the the necessity of being outside together in Born in Williamsport Pennsylvania igneous origin for nearly all rocks, preferring heat, rain, snow, and sleet has something to in 1932, Sally Fritz majored in chemistry instead to find the origin of many rocks from do with it. However, I’ve found “library” at Purdue University, where she received solution. The book describes the patient work to be sometimes just as strenuous, which her B.S. in 1954. Her chemistry major is by geological investigators seeking to resolve my colleagues here will well understand. important for it was through that door that that paradox. In the book one recognizes Our field of the history and philosophy of Sally would eventually enter geology. Also Sally Newcomb’s initial training as a chemist geology must be even more notable for those in 1954 Sally married Robert Newcomb, an as well her later adoption of the science of relationships. There often seems to be little electrical engineering student at Purdue. Their geology. In the clarity of the book’s treatment recognition of the field, and the number of children Gail and Rob were born in 1955 of such topics as geological instruments or practitioners world wide is only in the low and 1956. Robert Newcomb took his Ph.D. chemical reactions one also sees her broad hundreds. The good news, however, is that in Electrical Engineering at the University of and diverse experiences as a teacher. She does recognition is increasing, and we can all point California, Berkeley in 1960. His teaching not obfuscate. While every inch the scholar, with pride to a series of excellent books and career has spanned continents, allowing Sally she communicates at a level that everyone collections of papers published in the last to travel as well. She reports that her travels can understand. To mention just a small point, two decades, often by the Geological Society left her with the feeling that “the world is original sources are cited in the original of America and the Geological Society of often a friendly place.” Sally’s later work as language in the book, but translations are London, as well as by commercial publishers. an American member of INHIGEO has no provided in footnotes. World in a Crucible will Relative newcomers to the field such as doubt reflected that experience. Sally and Bob prove to be a standard work on the subject, China, Japan, South and Latin American have been frequent participants in INHIGEO countries, and the Arab world, are being conferences abroad. THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS recognized, joining the European countries on the History and Philosophy of Science at the experimental literature I appreciated the and North America. the University of Maryland, with one of those significance of the fact that rocks and minerals My checkered career, anything but aforementioned giants, and Division award could be and were put into solution, and a straight line, can best be described as winner, Stephen Brush, as my major advisor. I components of the solution including silicates, “sequential, not simultaneous.” Unlike the quickly became aware that I was in a different precipitated out sequentially. This was much admirable young women of today, I first ballgame, entirely unlike my previous more immediate evidence of an “aqueous” worked as a biochemist, then had children, technical studies and courses. That first course origin of crystalline rocks than a so-far traveled as a family to my husband’s Fulbright in historiography was more daunting than hypothetical source of heat sufficient to melt and other overseas positions, then went to X-ray fluorescence analysis or petrology. The them. And, being something of a contrarian, graduate school and continued teaching when first paper I gave at a national GSA meeting I rather enjoyed being a Neptunist, as well our children were grown. I taught science in was in Indianapolis. It was greeted with great as becoming familiar with the excellent and primary grades in a museum setting in Palo tolerance, but I fear it must have been pretty ingenious chemical research of such people Alto, substituted in 7th through 12th grade bad, because I recall wrestling with primary as Kirwan, Bergman, Klaproth, Spallanzani, science in those schools, then taught physical sources and still writing the night before it Saussure, and etc. It became obvious that there science, biology, and anatomy and physiology was presented. I also recall how welcome I was a “third leg” to geological knowledge, at the Academy of the Washington Ballet, was made to feel, and how friendly people namely experiment, and that it was far more where the students were all preprofessional were at the division lunch, particularly ubiquitous and influential than the cursory dancers. It has been a rich life. During my Ellen Drake and Bill Sarjeant. Studies at the notice it received in the standard history of time at graduate school, I joined the physical University continued to widen my horizons. I geology works. It has been my pleasure to science faculty at Prince George’s Community often felt schizophrenic because in the college continue to seek to untangle that tale, and to College in Maryland and taught physical setting I was supposed to be an expert, but give an account of the many excellent natural geology and inorganic chemistry. It is a large was anything but in the history of geology. philosophers who insisted on “interfering with institution, just outside Washington D.C., The anomaly that ultimately resulted in nature” to the extent of experimenting on earth with students from well over a hundred The World in a Crucible occurred to me during materials, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. countries. Those positions were scarce, but this time. It seemed that the geology literature This quest has led to many happy a determining factor was that I had lived of the 18th century veered between theory and hours discussing and exchanging ideas with overseas and had hosted Bob’s graduate field work, and Hutton was sometimes called colleagues. students from literally around the world in our “the father of geology” in our textbooks and The most rewarding part of taking home. We joke that we can land at any airport elsewhere. A theory would be proposed, and part in HaPG activity has been the collegial anywhere in the world and one of Bob’s Ph.D. the natural philosophers of the time would relationships throughout the world that I have students will be there to greet us. go to the field to test it. But reading the acquired, as well as discovering the excellent Having written a paper on the history literature, it was clear that theories were not and often rigorous science employed by our of chromite mining in Maryland for the final supported by field evidence at least as often 18th-century predecessors. This division of the paper for my first Master’s degree, I became as they were. In another puzzle, it was hard to Geological Society of America has provided interested in the history of geology, and how understand why, if Hutton’s theory of igneous a much-appreciated forum for the exchange geology impacted present land and water use, origin was correct, it took such a long time for of ideas and the introduction of new ones. economics, and the transport networks of a the counter-possibility, deposition from water I am most grateful that my work has been region. This led to study with the Committee solution, to be falsified. As I started reading recognized. Thank you.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

O.E. MEINZER AWARD from readily available sources such as core Harshbarger, ‘big John’, was the opposite logs (Carl and Fogg, 1996, Mathematical of Shlomo—a nuts and bolts hydrogeologist Presented to Geology, v. 28, p. 453–476) and random walk with emphasis on the ‘geo’—and with an Graham E. Fogg particle tracking methods to avoid numerical intimidating, demanding style that both dispersion in simulations of solute transport scared the hell out of us students and in complex media with sharp interfaces motivated us to pursue practical, imaginative (LaBolle, Fogg, and Tompson, 1996, Water solutions to problems when the equations did Resources Research, v. 32, p. 583–593). These not quite work. key advances led to a cascade of publications Then it was on to the Bureau of that have shined light on transport processes Economic Geology at The University such as diffusion limitations to contaminant of Texas at Austin and into a totally recovery, convolution of groundwater ages different school of thought. It was there, and age-tracer concentrations, anomalous while brainstorming about transport of dispersion and tailing of concentrations, and radionuclides that Charlie Kreitler kept stable isotope fractionation. Graham’s broad dropping pearls of wisdom about the absence knowledge and substantial contributions to of modern geology in hydrogeology and hydrogeology have gained him a very strong especially about the unrealized potential of international reputation and the respect of depositional systems science. This led to my fellow scientists. Above all, he is a dedicated, early attempts at incorporating geology more Graham E. Fogg sharing colleague with the highest level of realistically into 3D models in the early 80’s. University of California, Davis integrity. It was then that I realized the importance of connectivity as a means of simplifying the seemingly intractable heterogeneity problem. Response by Graham E. Fogg That research, and related efforts helped Citation by Christopher T. Green Thank you Lenny Konikow, Chris me accumulate quite a list of research ideas and Edward A. Sudicky Green and Ed Sudicky for those kind words. that set me up for my next job as a Professor It is quite overwhelming to join the list at UC Davis. I knew I had a bag full of ideas We present the 2011 O.E. Meinzer of illustrious O.E. Meinzer Awardees. I for dissertations and theses when I arrived Award to Graham E. Fogg in recognition of would like to thank the Geological Society at Davis in 1989, but had no idea whether his pioneering work on solute transport in of America, the Hydrogeology Division, I would get students who were interested complex geologic media. Graham has more and those who wrote letters of support for in doing the work. And my goodness, did than 30 years of experience researching and bestowing on me the honor. When the phone that ever work out! The later work cited teaching about topics that include, among call came from Ed Harvey notifying me of the in this award is predominantly due to two others, regional physical hydrogeology, good news, I literally almost fell off my chair! remarkable Ph.D. students, Steve Carle and contaminant hydrogeology, geostatistics and It was a total surprise, which made it all the Eric LaBolle; and in truth, their creativity stratigraphic modeling, and groundwater/ sweeter. remolded my earlier ideas into something surface water interactions. Graham has No one gets to this point without a lot far greater and unanticipated. In the early produced a large body of impactful papers, of help, and in my case I feel extraordinarily 1990’s in my lab while Steve Carle was from which the award committee recognized lucky to have been supported by an incredible rewriting the ‘book’ on geostatistics for facies three seminal papers as having significantly collection of people, especially family, modeling, Eric LaBolle was developing the advanced the science. mentors and students. First and foremost I first transport modeling algorithm capable Graham’s career has been devoted to owe thanks to my family, which has supported of doing justice to actual 3D geologic developing fundamental theory and widely me through thick and thin, and pulled more heterogeneity, and then in walked Gary applied methods related to the role of complex patience and wisdom out of me than I knew I Weissmann to close the loop regarding geology in hydrogeology. While at the Bureau had. From the bottom of my heart, thank you geologic processes and groundwater quality of Economic Geology from 1978–1989, he Karen Burow, and Paul, Dana and Carson. sustainability. I really owe so much to identified continuity and interconnectedness Four extraordinary, mind-bogglingly Steve and Eric as well as to Gary and an of high conductivity zones as critical different mentors taught and influenced me outstanding lineup of other gifted students. factors affecting fluid and solute transport profoundly. While I was a wayward Junior Lastly, a word of advice to our younger in complex aquifers, and he recognized the at the University of New Hampshire, Francis brethren. I think the late Steve Jobs said it need for geostatistical and stochastic methods Hall first lit up my interest in hydrogeology well, and this has worked well for me even to study these factors (Fogg, 1986, Water and helped put me on a path to graduate though it did not really kick in until later in Resources Research, v. 22, p. 679–694). In school. At University of Arizona I had the my career: “Don’t let the noise of others’ 1989, Graham began teaching and mentoring amazing fortune to be put through the paces opinions drown out your own inner voice. graduate students at University of California, both by both Shlomo Neuman and John And most important, have the courage to Davis. His research group made important Harshbarger. Shlomo has the unusual quality follow your heart and intuition.” In other advances toward developing the tools of being both a brilliant theoretician and words, decide in your head and gut what needed to better simulate transport processes gifted teacher. My modeling foundations and you think or what you think is the right path, in complex aquifers, including methods appreciation for the role of basic research in and never give up; and of course, never stop to simulate complex geological features hydrogeology came largely from him. John listening. Thank you very much!

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of Michigan that he had always been fascinated ISRAEL C. RUSSELL America, the AAAS and the Explorers Club. by lakes. I grew up within a few kms of the I have had the pleasure to know and work ocean and as I grew into adulthood knew AWARD with Berry for almost the same amount of that I wanted to be an ocean scientist. My Presented to time, and every meeting is joy and exciting. oceanographic career ended abruptly in the W. Berry Lyons My emotions are shared by all of Berry’s early 1980s as I became more interested in colleagues, and I would like to read to you terrestrial aquatic systems, especially salt a few of their words and their appreciation lakes. Also as I taught aquatic geochemistry for Berry’s contributions, collaboration and for the first few times, I became intrigued by friendship. the seminal work by Hardie and Eugster on “Berry is a gung-ho scientist who finds closed-basin lake chemical evolution, and great joy in discovery and collaboration. soon began to think about how elemental He is as much of a people person as he is a variation in lake systems was reflected by scientist. This combination makes working both watershed and in-lake biogeochemical with him a wonderful experience both from processes. Two other career changing a professional perspective and for just influences occurred soon after that increased having fun” my desire to refocus my research interests on lacustrine geochemistry—both of these “He combines the people-skills with a rigor connected my oceanographic past to my for organization and setting reasonable limnological future. The first was the reading goals. As such he has a wonderful ability to of a paper by Karen van Damm and John create a team out of a group of self-directed Edmond that essentially asked the question- W. Berry Lyons and focused scientists. Ohio State University—Columbus What would the chemistry of the oceans look Berry is able to take in the big picture and like without mid-ocean spreading centers? The motivate group goals such that everyone answer in their minds was to look to alkaline, has a buy-in” saline lakes in Africa. The second epiphany came from the work of Bill Green and his Citation by Scott W. Tyler “Berry, your generosity, humility and friendship has been enduring and valued in students who approached the understanding It is an honor and a tremendous pleasure more than 20 years of collaboration” of Antarctic saline lake evolution by applying for me to present the citation for the Israel “Berry Lyons is a true friend to many and a an oceanographic perspective on solute Cook Russell award for major contributions wonderful scientist who epitomizes the term mass balance. About this same time Mark to the field of limnogeology to my dear friend interdisciplinary in every way.” Hines, Andy Herczeg, John McArthur and and colleague, Berry Lyons. Dave Long and I were working on acid lake “Hurray for Berry!” Berry has been a leader in the broad systems in Australia and Bob Wharton asked field of environmental geochemistry, and is Berry’s accomplishments could fill me to become part of the McMurdo Dry recognized internationally as an expert in this lunch hour easily, but as you heard Valleys LTER project, where I had the great wide range of areas, including trace element from his colleagues and students, his spirit opportunity to conduct research on these transport in the environment, geochemical of discovery, camaraderie and energy are fascinating and unusual closed-basin lakes at evolution of lakes and lacustrine sediments those of a truly a great scientist, educator 78°S. and global climate change in the Polar and colleague. I cherish the collaborations So from the late 1980’s one of my major Regions. His diversity of interests and and friendship that I have been fortunate to research and teaching interests has been expertise is phenomenal; he has conducted have with Berry Lyons, and ask that you join the study of the geochemical behavior of seminal work on the geochemical evolution me in recognizing and congratulating the lakes. Along the way, I have literally been of saline lakes and in the same year, published Limnogeology Division’s 2011 Israel Cook blessed to have been associated with many groundbreaking work in the sediment fluxes Russell Awardee, Dr. William Berry Lyons. hard-working, inspiring, and life-sharing to the oceans. Berry has published over colleagues, collaborators, post-docs and 180 research papers covering some of the students. I am proud to say that I have never Response by W. Berry Lyons broadest topical areas I have ever seen. He had a single authored publication- the life’s has collaborated with a tremendous group of Thank you Scott for your gracious and work that you have honored for today has colleagues from around the world, including very generous words. I would like to begin by really been the work of many. Although his accomplished wife and colleague at the thanking the Limnogeology Division of GSA I do not have nearly the space or time to Ohio State University, Dr. Anne Carey. Berry for this wonderful honor. It is particularly acknowledge them all, I will note a few! has also served tirelessly on editorial boards of gratifying to me to follow my long-time These include the Australian work with Mark, journals ranging from Applied Geochemistry colleague Bill Last as the second awardee, as Andy, John and Dave noted above, my brief, to Water Resources Research, National Bill and I collaborated on the investigation of but greatly rewarding work in Lake Naivaska, Academy panels, all while serving as PI and Canadian Prairie lakes in the late 1980’s. It Kenya with Bwire Ojiambo and Bob Poreda, Chief Scientist for a decade, of the National is extremely humbling to be honored by your my interest in Great Basin lakes I owe to Science Foundation’s Long Term Ecological peers and I found it difficult to reflect on my individuals such as Karen Johannesson, Larry Research Site at the McMurdo Dry Valleys in linmogeological career in just a few words. Benson and Scott, and my two decades of Antarctica. He has been widely recognized by Bill mentioned last year in his response Antarctic work I have shared with many his peers including Fellow of the American that having grown up within meters of Lake wonderful colleagues and students including,

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS to name just a few, Kathy Welch, Peter Doran, linkages a scientist had to understand to perspective on lacustrine environments. We Klaus Neumann, Becki Witherow, Sarah discern a lake’s history. can only hope to uphold this tradition. Fortner and a major source of knowledge and “The history of a lake begins with the I am greatly appreciative and grateful to dedication—John Priscu. I am also grateful to origin of its basin and considers among other the Limnogeology Division for receiving the my wife and colleague of over 25 years, Anne subjects the movement of its waters, the IC Russell award. Thank you all very much. Carey, for her support, understanding and changes it produces in the topography of its collaboration. shore, its relations to climate, its geological Let me finish by adding my astonishment functions, and its connections with plant and to be associated with the ‘likes of Israel C. animal life.” He was clearly a man ahead Russell. In the introduction to 1895 book of his time, with a truly interdisciplinary on lakes he summarized what processes and

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

DISTINGUISHED used geothermometer (1,206 citations as of Response by John M. Ferry this writing!). John has coauthored ten other Thank you, Sarah, for your generous GEOLOGIC CAREER papers that have over 100 citations, most of citation and my other students who wrote which quantify the composition and amount of AWARD letters of support. fluid required for the progress of metamorphic I’m proud to receive this award for reactions. (MGPV DIVISION) two reasons. First, GSA has been my most John’s work has always been field- important meeting of the year because it has Presented to based, and includes all types of metamorphic a focus on continental crust petrology. The John M. Ferry environments—from his studies of regional greatest honor is to be recognized by the metamorphism in Maine and Vermont, to group whose work means the most to me. studies of hydrothermal alteration on the Isle Second, the award specifically recognizes of Skye and in the Dolomites, to numerous field studies. Members of the MGPV Division studies of contact metamorphism including need little persuasion of the importance of Notch Peak, Bergell, Monzoni, Predazzo, fieldwork. One reason is that you go out in Onawa, Ballachulish, Beinn an Dubhaich, the field expecting to find one thing and make Ritter Range, and Mt. Morrison. an unimaginable discovery of something else John uses a multidisciplinary approach even more significant. A favorite example to his research. He integrates field-based is Louis Alvarez’s suggesting that iridium studies, quantitative modeling of heat and concentration might record sedimentation mass transfer during fluid-rock interactions, rate in a stratigraphic sequence Walter was application of thermodynamic analysis and studying at Gubbio, Italy. A similar, although experimental determinations of mineral- less momentous, surprise brought me here. mineral and mineral-fluid equilibria. His When I began graduate school in 1971, one analytical techniques include detailed three- of the hottest research subjects in mineralogy John M. Ferry dimensional field mapping of fluid flow and petrology was subsolidus phase relations Johns Hopkins University pathways, petrology and thermobarometry, among plagioclase feldspars. Five years major and trace element analysis by electron before, the peristerite gap was determined microprobe and LA-ICP-MS, calculations of from feldspar compositions in metamorphic reaction progress, and measurement of stable rocks. My first summer of fieldwork was to isotopic compositions (both in bulk and in Citation by Sarah C. Penniston-Dorland look for analogous miscibility gaps in more individual minerals) through both traditional calcic plagioclases in metacarbonate rocks John Ferry is a man of extraordinary and clumped isotope thermometry. along a gradient from chlorite to sillimanite intellect who has made significant What is it that makes John’s work so zones in Maine. Plagioclase compositions in contributions to the understanding of the role compelling? John has a deep commitment the rocks proved bafflingly complicated, so I of fluids during metamorphism. Because to understand the rocks as they are. His is switched my attention to the petrology of the of his work, metamorphic petrology now the sort of integrity that looks to the rocks to carbonate rocks themselves. This led to my operates in an intellectual environment suggest working hypotheses for testing with first ideas about infiltration of rocks during that links metamorphism to global change, measured data. Throughout his career, John’s metamorphism. volcanism, ore genesis and plate deformation. meticulous analytical protocols have solidly Even more importantly, however, John recognized and characterized infiltration- undergirded the once-extremely controversial fieldwork is the enterprise of mapping spatial driven reactions and the associated alteration conclusions he has drawn about the flux of patterns of countless different features in of the chemical and isotopic compositions of fluids through metamorphic rocks and the nature. It’s these patterns, obtainable by no rocks to quantitatively assess the amount and time-scales for fluid-rock interactions in both other means, that tell us how the Earth works. chemistry of fluid involved in metamorphic pluton-related and regional metamorphic In my case, mapping the spatial distributions reactions. More than two decades ago, settings. No modern petrologist can ignore of mineral assemblages in metamorphic John recognized that the paradigm of static the implications of fluid fluxes during terrains at a range of scales revealed the thermodynamic phase equilibria used in metamorphic processes, and this view can be existence, size, and fundamental properties of understanding metamorphism had been traced to John’s elegant work. fossil fluid flow systems. “squeezed dry” of new insights. He sought to We are pleased that the Division of My field studies have been possible only transcend the limitations imposed by the time- Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology and in areas where stratigraphy, structure, and age invariant aspect of equilibrium models, and, Volcanology has recognized John for his relations are already worked out. Accordingly, throughout his career, has led metamorphic decades of leading metamorphic petrologists my heroes among field geologists are those petrologists from a static towards a dynamic towards active consideration of the flow of who do this. Many have shared their time view of metamorphism. fluids, matter and heat during metamorphism and knowledge both in and out of the field From his earliest contributions John’s through the awarding of its Distinguished getting me started at new locations, including work has made significant impacts on the field Geologic Career Award. Congratulations, Phil Osberg and Doug Rumble in New of metamorphic petrology. His most-cited John! work is an experimental calibration of Fe-Mg England; George Dunne, Cal Stevens, Rich partitioning between biotite and garnet (Ferry Schweickert, and especially Sorena Sorensen and Spear, 1978), which is still a widely in the Sierra Nevada; Dave Pattison and Ben Harte in Scotland; Bernard Evans and the

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS late Volkmar Trommsdorff in Switzerland; students have expanded my horizons by and Lawrie Hardie and Nereo Preto in Italy. involving me in field problems I would not Three people made pivotal contributions have explored otherwise, by developing to my intellectual development. My Ph.D. theory and numerical simulations beyond my advisor, Jim Thompson, grounded me in abilities, and by pointing out my earlier ideas thermodynamics and phase equilibria. When that needed revision. Many people thus share I was 46, my postdoc advisor, Doug Rumble, in this award, and I thank them all. took me on in his laboratory as an apprentice stable isotope geochemist. Lukas Baumgartner first tuned me into transport theory. My

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

G.K. GILBERT AWARD in Mars’ early history was required to explain I also had the great good fortune to work the lakes. Squyres presented a lecture entitled with Gene Shoemaker when I was in grad Presented to “Water on Mars” in accepting the 1989 school; Gene’s enthusiasm for science Steven W. Squyres Urey Prize from the American Astronomical has been an inspiration to me ever since. Society. And my postdoctoral advisor at Ames was In the 1990s Steve became a strong Ray Reynolds. Much of my early work in spokesman for in situ chemical and planetary science began with ideas that came mineralogical measurements feeling our from him. insight into Mars’ early history was weakly I’ve also gotten to work with some of based on geomorphology. He began promoting the best in the business on a number of NASA both in situ and remote methods that could flight projects. A long time ago, as a brand- definitively ascertain the chemistry and new grad student working on the Voyager mineralogy of the Martian surface, including project, I decided that Larry Soderblom was gamma ray, x-ray, alpha particle, Raman, and the guy I wanted to be like when I grew up. infrared spectroscopy that could be used on I’m still working on that one. Ray Arvidson landers, rovers, and orbiters. He became a has been my partner and friend through all science team member on gamma ray and x-ray the years that we’ve worked on Spirit and fluorescence experiments on several Mars and Opportunity, from the very beginning right up asteroid missions. Forging alliances with the to yestersol. And of course the rover science Steven W. Squyres scientific leaders in these fields, he assembled is the product of the whole Athena science Cornell University a scientific team and a suite of instruments that team, more than a hundred scientists that I’m grew into the Athena payload, ultimately the very proud to be one of. tools of two robotic field geologists, the Mars Too often in this business, we scientists Exploration Rovers. have a tendency to forget about the people Citation by Laurence A. Soderblom Squyres was now poised to lead a who make what we do possible—the mission to Mars to peer directly into its engineers who build our instruments and our Steve Squyres’ career is rich in ancient geologic past to answer the key spacecraft. All the science done by the MER contributions to planetary science with scientific questions that had so long driven rovers was made possible by people like Pete fundamental research into the chemistry, him. The MER results have dramatically Theisinger, Richard Cook, Matt Wallace, my physics, and geology of bodies ranging from enriched our view of the enormous complexity good friend Barry Goldstein, and literally Venus to Mars, from comets to asteroids, and of Martian geological history and transformed thousands of others. I am deeply in their debt, across the myriad of outer-planet satellites. our understanding of how Mars has evolved. as are we all. Threaded through his career has been a keen At Gusev crater Spirit uncovered a complex Another thing I think maybe we forget interest in searching for evidence of liquid variety of aqueous alteration products; in sometimes is how lucky we are to do what water and potential habitats, coupled to the Meridiani Opportunity discovered sedimentary we do. We’re living in an extraordinary time, possible emergence of life beyond Earth. rocks deposited in open shallow lakes. There when we’re taking the first steps off our home Europa and Mars became the early foci of is little doubt that warmer, wetter periods had planet. It’s a time that I think in the hindsight his passion. Steve has enormously advanced to exist on ancient Mars. Squyres’ career-long of history will be seen as one of humanity’s our understanding of the role of water in the quest to reveal Mars’ early environments has great bursts of exploration and discovery. And geological and climatic history of Mars— been a monumental and singular personal we not only get to witness it, we get to be part probably more than any other planetary feat with a scientific impact that has indelibly of it. I’m deeply grateful for that opportunity, scientist. Pursuit of these fundamental Mars reshaped the future exploration of Mars—both and even more grateful to be able to have science goals became a personal, career-long by robots and by humans. shared the adventure with so many of my crusade. In the end he has laid down a new colleagues and friends. Thank you. scientific foundation for the exploration of Mars; that crusade I chronicle here. Response by Steven W. Squyres His early career focused on geomorphic This award is given very generously, evidence for liquid water and ice in Mars’ and received very gratefully. It’s especially geologic past, arguing that many features gratifying to receive it in the presence of so signaled presence of ice; such ice is now many of the friends and colleagues that I’ve confirmed by Mars Odyssey gamma ray worked with over the years. and neutron measurements and by Mars I started down this road a long time ago, Reconnaissance Orbiter’s subsurface radar and I’ve had the good fortune to be guided by observations. He later hypothesized that many people along the way. Joe Veverka was ancient valley networks formed in the my advisor in grad school, and he taught me Noachian evidenced abundant ice-covered both how to do science and, by his example, lakes. From modeling efforts to understand how to be a generous mentor and colleague. the physics and chemistry and stability Carl Sagan taught me physics, and also of lakes and springs against freezing, he taught me the importance of communicating concluded that a warmer and wetter period science in a way that anyone can understand.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS KIRK BRYAN AWARD Presented to Robert C.Walter And Dorothy J. Merritts

for Natural Streams and the Legacy of Water-Powered Mills Science, v. 319, p. 299-304.

Citation by Ellen E. Wohl The 2011 Kirk Bryan award goes to Robert Walter and Dorothy Merritts for the 2008 Science paper “Natural Streams and the Legacy of Robert C.Walter Dorothy J. Merritts Water-Powered Mills.” This paper generated national and international Franklin and Marshall University attention because of its thorough and timely examination of some long-held assumptions about river form and river restoration. The scientific community has come to regard gravel-bed streams as having a for members of the stream-science community to re-evaluate long-held characteristic meandering planform bordered by fine-grained overbank assumptions about stream process and form, the historical influence of deposits. This conceptualization is based at least in part on mid-Atlantic humans on streams, and appropriate models for stream restoration. streams initially described in some of the classic fluvial geomorphic A strength of the work presented in this paper is the careful, studies of the 1960s. Stream restoration projects commonly seek to re- detailed interpretation of past environments based on stratigraphic and create this river form under the assumption that it represents the most historical records. Walter and Merritts use diverse sources of prehistoric stable, widespread, and natural configuration for mid-sized rivers.The and historical information to reconstruct the environment of valley Walter and Merritts paper calls this conceptualization into question by bottoms prior to, during, and following the period of initial European presenting careful documentation that, prior to European settlement of settlement. As stream science becomes increasingly quantitative and the eastern United States, many of the streams were small, multi-thread based on numerical simulations, this paper provides a strong reminder channels in valleys with extensive wetlands that accumulated relatively that conceptual and numerical models must be firmly grounded in little sediment. These streams and valley bottoms were subsequently the reality of records from the field. The expectation of what streams buried by thicknesses of up to 5 m of sediment that was trapped ‘should’ look like is fundamental to our understanding of geomorphic upstream from tens of thousands of mill dams constructed along the process and form and the application of this understanding to stream streams to create water power for diverse uses during the 17th to 19th management, including restoration. Expectations based on inappropriate centuries. As these mills were abandoned, the filled millponds were assumptions can have direct and widespread consequences. The work forgotten, vegetation grew over the pond sediments, and the streams of Walter and Merritts exemplifies the application of stratigraphic, incised into the sediments and assumed a new, stable planform that paleoenvironmental, and historical records to understanding past was subsequently interpreted to reflect ‘natural’ stream configuration in and present landforms and to contemporary resource management. the absence of human manipulation of watersheds and valley bottoms. Because this work represents fundamental scientific research, as well By demonstrating that the floodplains are actually historical fill as the application of scientific understanding to issues of concern to terraces and that the streams are not natural archetypes for gravel-bed, contemporary society, the paper is worthy of the high honor of the Kirk meandering streams, Walter and Merritts have provided an opportunity Bryan Award.

Response by Robert C. Walter when I know I’m in the zone.” I carried that small, meandering stream: no lateral accretion article for years as inspiration of what it must surfaces, no fining-upward sequences, no There are few things more gratifying than feel like to be so in tune with your profession sand or gravel...just 5 m of massive, finely being recognized by ones peers, especially that time slows down. laminated silty-clay. Dorothy said: “There when this honor began with a recommendation In the summer of 2003, and I found must have been a dam. These have to be from a colleague as accomplished as Ellen myself standing in ankle deep water of a small pond sediments”. We walked less than 100 Wohl. I am deeply grateful to Ellen for her second-order stream in Lancaster County, m downstream where we found large, rough recommendation, and to the Kirk Bryan Award Pennsylvania. I was with my colleague hewn blocks of limestone in the stream, some committee for selecting our 2008 paper for Dorothy Merritts and her student Lauren the size of this podium, and we traced them this citation. I am privileged and humbled. Manion. Lauren was showing us a perplexing into both banks. The boulders on the left When I was as a graduate student, I read site she had found a few days earlier. What bank were neatly stacked like large bricks, a short article about the great Boston Red Sox was perplexing was that this ankle-deep, representing the remains of a 5-m-high stone slugger Ted Williams. He was attempting to 3-m-wide stream had a vertical cut bank dam. The boulders on the right bank merged describe what he visualized in the batters box nearly 5 m high. The bank was composed into an equally well-crafted stone wall that that made him such an outstanding hitter. He entirely of silts and clays, which were braced one side a long ditch dug into the base said: “When I step into the box, time slows horizontally bedded and finely laminated. of a colluvial hill slope. We followed the ditch down for me. When the pitch is delivered the They looked like pond sediments, and not at about a kilometer, where it lead to an old, ball looks to be the size of a beach ball. That’s all what one expects to see in the bank of a long defunct, water-powered mill. As we took

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS in this sequence of events—the high banks, Pennsylvania upon which we now spend much led to rapid incision, channel migration, and the stone dam exactly the same height as the of our time. We were fortunate to discuss this erosion. Also, we now know that the valley banks, a kilometer-long millrace—we began work with Reds on multiple occasions, and was a stable wet meadow with groundwater to piece the puzzle together. even to share two days with him in the field springs, thick nutrient-rich organic mat, and I grew up in Lancaster County, I fished before he passed away. We also were fortunate small channels throughout the Holocene. these creeks as a boy and rode my bike around to work with Milan Pavich (USGS), 33rd This Holocene wetland formed on a coarse the countryside. “There were hundreds of winner of the Kirk Bryan award. Throughout Pleistocene periglacial colluvial substrate. mills in Lancaster County…” I said, letting this research, I benefited from early training What lessons can we learn from nearly the thought trail off. Silently, as if blinders by Bill Bull (35th winner of the Kirk Bryan 60 years of research on the same streams? were lifted, we began to see the cumulative award). Mid-Atlantic Piedmont streams are Causality is not necessarily the most obvious impact of hundreds of dams. Time slowed, and far different than those of the Pacific Rim that or even concurrent phenomenon. Base-level for a fleeting moment I felt like Ted Williams I traipsed with Bill, but his influence enabled change from breaching of old dams, not (just) in the batters box… nature was tossing us a me to see the signal of rapid base-level change urbanization, has led to widespread channel huge, juicy fastball right down the center of in a landscape where we didn’t expect to find incision throughout the mid-Atlantic region. the plate. it. Stratigraphy and mapping are fundamentally I am grateful to many colleagues and Nearly 40 years ago, Luna Leopold important. Boulders and cobbles in the bed mentors who instilled in me a love for the delivered the outgoing president’s address of a small stream might be exhumed from a Quaternary, and I would like to acknowledge to the Geological Society of America at its Pleistocene gelifluction sheet, not necessarily a few here: John Moss (F&M), John Hollin 1972 meeting, the last time it was held here evidence of transport during modern storms. (INSTAAR), John Andrews (INSTAAR), John in Minneapolis. The title of his address was Millpond sedimentation was equivalent to a Westgate (University of Toronto), and my “River Channel Change with Time” (GSA Pompeii effect, blanketing and preserving the graduate advisor Jim Aronson (CWRU, now Bulletin v. 84, no. 6, p. 1845-1860). The Holocene landscape. Finally, when we look Dartmouth). The late Derek York (University channel was Watts Branch, a small (10-km2 back at the classic early work of Reds and of Toronto) shared with me his passion for drainage area) tributary to the Potomac Luna we find that they made many of the same deep (and not so deep) time, and his ability to River. Luna had monitored channel change discoveries that continue to surprise us. One recognize important research problems. He is since 1972, and concluded it was occurring of the most important is the role of freeze- sorely missed. “far more rapidly than [he] expected”. thaw in bank erosion. Luna referred to it in his Urbanization had just begun, and he attributed 1972 GSA address as the “main mechanism of change and its rapidity to this phenomenon. bank retreat”. Our detailed, ongoing studies Response by Dorothy J. Merritts Luna’s observations and astute insights support this finding, yet modern policies for Thank you, Ellen, and members of the remain sound, but he didn’t realize that the reducing sediment load to the Chesapeake Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology channel he studied was the remnants of a Bay, an impaired water body, do not account Division for honoring our work on mid- race, a ditch dug by some 19th c. miller to for bank retreat or freeze-thaw. Atlantic streams. Our work builds on the bring water through an older sediment-filled In closing, we thank our many colleagues legacies of the great geomorphologists Luna millpond to his mill just downstream. Luna’s (especially Mike Rahnis, Noel Potter, Leopold (first Kirk Bryan award winner, channel sections were located within the Frank Pazzaglia, and Allen Gellis) and the 1958) and Reds (M. Gordon) Wolman, who incised channel of this filled pond. We now Department of Earth and Environment at for years worked on the same small to mid- know that the milldam breached sometime Franklin and Marshall College for their sized Piedmont streams in Maryland and between 1910 and 1955, and this breaching continued support and collaboration.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

LAURENCE L. SLOSS More generally, Grotzinger has led his No one arrives at a moment like this generation’s efforts to understand the tectonic, without the help of many people, and I am AWARD environmental, and biological controls on grateful for the opportunity to acknowledge Presented to carbonate deposition in Precambrian oceans. at least a few of them. At the University John P. Grotzinger His work shows that three-dimensional of Montana Don Winston first influenced geometries of carbonate platform accretion me to work on the little-known Belt basin have changed little in more than two billion in northwestern Montana. Paul Hoffman years, demonstrating strong overall control on exposed me to a series of field campaigns shelf carbonate deposition by tectonics and in Wopmay Orogen that still remain as seawater chemistry. Especially important, John the most intense of my life. After 20-30 has made key observations of Precambrian kilometer traverses he would spend hours stromatolites and developed mathematical in the summer twilight of northern Canada models for their accretion, providing (among educating me in almost every aspect other things) an abiotic null model against of geology. Sam Bowring shared this which hypotheses of biological accretion adventure, but on the other side of the most must be tested. Grotzinger was also the first mosquito-infested map area on the planet. to document the precipitation of aragonite At Virginia Tech, Fred Read illuminated from Precambrian seawater, and the first to everything about carbonate sedimentology show the long term pattern of decreasing and we shared the thrill of running the first seafloor carbonate precipitation through time. numerical simulations of carbonate platform This stands as the most significant change development. Ken Eriksson schooled me John P. Grotzinger identified in carbonate rocks through the first in clastic sedimentology and along with California Institute of Technology 85 percent of recorded Earth history, and it Hoffman and Winston further instilled in provides critical context for interpretating the me the drive to explore Precambrian Earth stromatolite record. history. Later on, at Lamont Doherty, Nick Beyond all this, Grotzinger has become Christie-Blick and Gerard Bond challenged Citation by Andrew H. Knoll the undisputed leader in efforts to characterize me to undertake basin modeling studies that I John Grotzinger has made original the sedimentary geology of the oldest known subsequently carried to MIT in collaboration and lasting contributions to three areas of well preserved sedimentary rocks—on Mars. with Wiki Royden. sedimentary geology, any one of which would He led the effort by NASA’s MER science I have benefitted from many qualify him for the Sloss Award. team to produce the first stratigraphic section collaborations over the years and to mention To begin, John’s meticulous field measured on another planet and provided just a few, I must begin with Andy Knoll who studies of Neoproterozoic successions the key insights that underpin interpretations taught me pretty much everything I know in Siberia, Oman, and Namibia have of depositional and diagenetic processes about evolutionary biology. Sam Bowring, collectively transformed our understanding recorded by sedimentary rocks at Meridiani Roger Summons, and Dan Rothman have of the timing and environmental context Planum. Indeed, in continuing research John is all drawn me into very different corners of of early animal diversification. With Sam establishing a genuine discipline of planetary Geobiology. Steve Squyres provided me Bowring, Grotzinger established the temporal sedimentary geology. As the principal scientist with a career-changing Opportunity to join a framework of early animal evolution, on the Mars Science Lander mission, to remarkable team of scientists and engineers collecting ash beds from all three successions be launched during the coming year, John that motivate me to this day. Those first that sharply constrain the ages of the oldest will have new and unique opportunities to images of cross-stratified rocks in Eagle known animal fossils, the Proterozoic- elucidate depositional patterns and processes crater will be burned in my mind forever. Cambrian boundary, and the isotopic on our planetary neighbor. Finally, I have been very lucky to have excursions that permit inter-basinal correlation I have worked closely with John for a superb group of students and postdocs. of Ediacaran rocks. Grotzinger documented many years and cannot imagine a better David McCormick, Julio Freidmann, and the stratigraphic and environmental colleague—or a better friend. As he has done Brad Ritts mapped foreland and strike-slip distribution of the earliest known skeleton- for more than two decades, John Grotzinger basins; Beverly Saylor, Shane Pelechaty, forming animals. Moreover, through detailed continues to lead sedimentary geology in new Odin Smith, Steve DiBenedetto, David stratigraphic research in Oman, he showed directions. Larry Sloss would be proud. Fike, and Justin Ries explored Ediacaran that these early skeletal organisms suffered chronostratigraphy and paleoceanography; Linda Kah, Stefan Schroeder, Erwin Adams, abrupt extinction at a horizon near the Response by John P. Grotzinger Proterozoic-Cambrian boundary marked by Mike Tice, Abby Allwood and Woody Ficher major perturbation of the carbon cycle. Also, Thank you Andy for your kind words studied microbial processes and their rock Grotzinger and his students have provided a about my love for sedimentary geology, and record; Roy Adams, Dawn Sumner, and highly resolved picture of variation through thanks to the Geological Society of America Mike Pope examined Archean to Cambrian latest Proterozoic time in the carbon and for this recognition. Receiving the Sloss carbonates and evaporites; Jennifer Carlson, sulfur isotopic compositions of seawater, Award is a tremendous honor, as Larry was Jeff Parsons, and Bill Lyons took on analysis supporting hypotheses of major changes in a great inspiration to me in many ways as a of turbidites and bed thickness distributions; marine redox chemistry just as large and graduate student. Wes Watters reconstructed Namacalathus motile animals entered the geologic record. and Endurance crater; Adam Maloof worked

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS on Holocene parasequence development at form my group of current students. Many Andros Island; Alex Hayes, Joannah Metz are becoming scientific leaders in their own and Ralph Milliken helped pioneer the study right, and I am immensely proud of all their of the sedimentary record of Mars. And accomplishments. finally, Lauren Edgar, Maggie Osborn, Katie Stack, Kristen Bergman, and Daniel Stolper

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS

STRUCTURAL Arnold Lillie. At the same time he took up fault-hosted hydrothermal mineralization; a caving and exploring old gold-silver mines concept that is now widely utilized in gold GEOLOGY & east of Auckland, which likely led to his later exploration. TECTONICS CAREER diversification from pure structural geology In 1990 he returned to New Zealand as into the structural controls on ore deposits, and Professor and Head of the Department at the CONTRIBUTION processes of mineralization. University of Otago. Since his return ‘home’, In the 1970s, Rick was a post-graduate Rick has continued studying natural examples AWARD at Imperial College London, where his PhD of deformed rocks from denuded fault zones Presented to supervisor, Janet Watson, had the wisdom to and hydrothermal mineral deposits. He Richard H. Sibson let her students run by themselves and ‘follow quietly/calmly but repeatedly reminds our their noses’. And so he did, selecting his field (structural geology) community that rock area on the basis of a New Scientist article structures we consider as developing slowly by Peter Francis entitled ‘The Geology of and steadily in the upper half of the crust are Whiskey Galore’. Rick’s investigation of the likely accomplished by earthquake faulting. deep-seated ‘guts’ of the ancient fault zone Integral to this mission has been raising exposed adjoining the peat bogs of the Outer public awareness of earthquake hazards Hebrides (Scotland) convinced him of the surrounding the New Zealand plate boundary, relationship between structural geology and and Pacific Rim in general. However, this earthquake rupturing. His thesis recognized did not stop him and his geologist wife that systematic changes with depth in fault Francesca Ghisetti from acquiring property rocks could be used to define a mechanical near Christchurch City! He helped define transition in the crust between brittle near- the scientific rationale and objectives for the surface faulting and deeper, more ductile shear NSF/USGS San Andreas Fault Observatory at zones. This work defined the basic architecture Depth (SAFOD), and continues to contribute of fault zones, and presented the terminology to the drilling program on New Zealand’s for fault rocks that remains widely used Alpine fault. Richard H. Sibson today. It emphasized the important point that Rick, you have had a profound influence University of Otago, New Zealand ‘earthquake geology’ extends below the dirt on both pure and applied geosciences levels beloved of paleoseismologists well into over more than 35 years, and are truly a the ‘underburden’. distinguished international scientist. It is In the early 1980’s Rick was invited therefore my great honor to present to you Citation by Barbara E. John to the Office of Earthquake Studies at the the 2011 Career Contribution Award from It is my pleasure to introduce Professor USGS in Menlo Park. This ‘intoxicating’ the Structure and Tectonics Division of the Richard (Rick) H. Sibson the 2011 recipient environment led to him recognizing the Geological Society of America. of the Career Contribution Award. This award correlation between the depth distribution of crustal earthquakes, and his earlier fault is given to an individual who throughout Response by Richard H. Sibson their career has made numerous distinguished zone models, transforming our understanding contributions that have clearly advanced the of faulting processes and earthquakes. In Thank you Barbara John for your very science of structural geology or tectonics, 1982 he moved to U.C. Santa Barbara where kind remarks. Once, during a break from and ‘distinguished contributions’ is a very Rick mentored me. There I was called into field-camp Bobbie drove my truck while apt description of Rick’s career studying service to aid him in his newfound passion I was desperately trying to avoid getting earthquakes in the field as a geologist. In fact, of ‘launching’ from remote mountaintops sucked up into a thunderhead in Owen’s I know each of us has been influenced by strapped into nothing more than a pair of Valley—an early near-death experience—so it his contributions toward understanding the dacron wings, hoping to fly—something he is entirely right that she should be here giving structure and mechanics of crustal fault zones, called hang gliding. I felt the need for him to this citation. More properly, one should note but some may not know the man—for those a remain alive to sign my dissertation so decided that graduate students like Bobbie always brief history. monitoring his activity was reasonable. At teach you a lot more than you teach them— Rick was born and raised in Auckland, the time I worked on well-exposed low- “I don’t care what your mechanics tell you, New Zealand the son of R.B. Sibson (classics angle normal faults whose existence Rick Rick—look at the rocks—you just cannot deny master at King’s College, life-long birder, reluctantly admitted though he considered the physical existence of low-angle normal and inveterate island-hopper), and J.W. them mechanically unfeasible. Over the same faults!” Fleming, sister of Sir Charles Fleming, period he was developing comprehensive The biologist Jacques Monod tells us Chief Paleontologist with the New Zealand models highlighting the interrelationships that life as a whole evolves through chance Geological Survey. This auspicious birth between fluid flow, faulting, and earthquakes and necessity—a pretty fair description led to his love of the outdoors, a career in the crust. This led to his fault-valve model of my own career adapting to changing choice likely prejudiced by his uncle, and tying the earthquake cycle to the flow of circumstances. Back in pre- plate tectonic an ability to recite literature at any time and overpressured fluids and mineralization. By days, my grounding in structural geology place. At the University of Auckland, he was applying simple mechanical principles, Rick and tectonics at the University of Auckland strongly influenced by an inspirational class demonstrated that transient permeability came from Arnold Lillie who had mapped in structural geology taught by Professor generated by earthquake rupture can lead to the high Southern Alps around Mt Cook with

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2011 MEDALS & AWARDS the help of a field assistant called Ed Hillary. persuaded Janet Watson that ‘those awful conduits for mineralization. Sadly, I had My transition to Imperial College in London rocks’ were worth studying. Structural to let go of the hang-gliding. Many of our in 1969 was due largely to Arnold’s coercion geologists have a bad tendency of being students first find employment in the Archean in forcing me to sign a series of scholarship distracted by beauty but ‘rock uglification’ craton of Western Australia but I like to think applications. also turns out to be important. Demonstrating that growing up on the active Pacific Rim Some will recall 1968 as the magic year that the pseudotachylytes so widespread in the contributed to their education. when many of the fundamental papers of plate Lewisian Gneisses of the Outer Hebrides were To a student of active Earth processes, tectonics were being published in the Journal ‘fossil earthquakes’ and reconstructing the the South Island of New Zealand is a of Geophysical Research—intoxicating rheological structure of an ancient thrust zone geological paradise. But as you all know, reading for someone growing up in an island was enormous fun but I soon realized I needed much of geologic process resembles arc. One that particularly impressed was to know a lot more about modern earthquake warfare—long periods of boredom punctuated ‘Seismology and the New Global Tectonics’ by processes. by short periods of unusual interest (and Bryan Isacks, Jack Oliver, and Lynn Sykes— In 1981 I had the great fortune to be a terror!)—so you have to be careful what you earthquakes, apparently, had something to do Visiting Scientist in the Office of Earthquake wish for. The ongoing earthquake sequence with displacement along plate boundaries. Studies at USGS in Menlo Park where I around our newly adopted city of Christchurch I thus arrived at Imperial College to study encountered the generous hospitality of the in fact turns out to be a classic example of quantitative structural geology with a head Californian earthquake science community— conjugate ‘Andersonian’ wrench faulting. full of the new-fangled notions of plate Tom Hanks, Dave Hill, Art McGarr, Bill But the fascination of ‘living over the shop’ tectonics. With this in mind I sat through John Ellsworth, and many others including the certainly fades after a year of rich and violent Ramsay’s cohesive and wonderfully flowing great Bob Wallace who began as a mining aftershock activity! lectures on the earth as a ductilely deforming geologist but was surely the pioneer of A structural geologist is soon lost without continuum, occasionally wondering whether modern Earthquake Geology. Then came the a compass. The America I knew, lived in anything fast and violent ever occurred in move to UC Santa Barbara working alongside for 10 years, enjoyed hugely and benefited structural geology. But Neville Price’s ‘think John Crowell and Art Sylvester. NSF was from immensely, was the land of boundless of a number’ approach combined with Ernie surprisingly supportive though I do recall one possibility, of “let’s make it happen”, of Rutter’s materials science set me off along review that noted: “Sibson’s idea of field work science as “the never-ending frontier”, of “the another track! Around that time earthquakes seems to consist mostly of touring”. Quite only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. It appeared as ‘flyspots’ on maps and were right—if you see the same field relations in was not the America that condones torture, the property of seismologists—they were a variety of locations you may be looking at abandons habeas corpus, and conducts drone not generally considered part of structural something important! A growing interest in assassinations. This seeming ‘loss of moral geology. However, over in Civil Engineering, fluid activity in the ductile roots of fault zones compass’ is of enormous concern to friends of John Tchalenko and Nick Ambraseys were then led me to the Archean shield of Canada America around the world. preparing wonderfully detailed maps of the where I was introduced to the wonderland of That said, I am grateful beyond words 1968 M 7.2 Dasht-e-Bayaz rupture in central mesothermal lode gold systems by Howard to the Geological Society of America for this Iran where c. 4 m of left-lateral strike-slip had Poulsen and Francois Robert of GSC. award, to my parents who let me fly free, occurred in just a few seconds. My return to New Zealand to the to all my colleagues and students, and most Then came the problem of selecting a University of Otago in 1990 allowed me to importantly to my wife Francesca Ghisetti— PhD topic. Daunted by the vast literature continue work in these three overlapping best of companions. on the Alps, I decided to have a crack at the fields—structural geology of fault zones, the Thank you all very much indeed. peculiar ‘flinty crush phenomenon’ associated mechanics of shallow crustal earthquakes, with the Outer Hebrides Thrust and somehow and the role of faults and fractures as fluid

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