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The
Society Page
News about
people and
announcements
from
AGI's 35
member societies
______________________ |
To
post news in the Society Page, send e-mail to geotimes@agiweb.org
with the subject: Society Page. |
Contents:
AGU awards science journalists
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) honored Alexandra Witze, science
writer for the Dallas Morning News, and Richard L. Hill, science reporter
for The Oregonian, with the society’s 2000 Excellence in Science Writing
awards.
Alexadra
Witze
Richard
L. Hill
|
Witze won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Writing
for her feature story, “Paradise Submerged,” published Aug. 12, 1999. It
describes the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean. The plateau
was dry land some 100 million years ago, but is now, except for a few small
islands, completely submerged. Her story is at http://dallasnews.com/science/70455_witzestory.html.
Hill is the first winner of AGU’s David Perlman Award for Excellence
in Science Writing and was honored for his front-page story, “Quake Forecast
Shifts to Land,” published May 4, 1999. Hill reported on research showing
that western Oregon could be the epicenter of a “colossal” earthquake of
magnitude 8 or 9. Previous forecasts were for potentially less damaging
quakes occurring about 30 miles offshore. The story is available at: www.oregonlive.com/news/99/05/st050408.html.
The Sullivan and Perlman Awards consist of a plaque and two thousand
dollars. The Sullivan Award honors its first recipient, Walter Sullivan,
science writer for The New York Times, and recognizes stories written under
deadlines of more than one week. The David Perlman Award recognizes stories
written in one week or less and is named for the science editor of the
San Francisco Chronicle and winner of AGU’s 1997 Sustained Achievement
Award in Science Journalism. |
|
AAPG award
winners
Gerald M. Friedman, distinguished professor of geology at the Brooklyn
College City University of New York, heads this year’s list of honor recipients
from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Friedman received
the 2000 Sidney Powers Memorial Award, AAPG’s highest honor. He and other
winners received their awards on April 16 during the AAPG annual meeting
in New Orleans.
Recipients of the AAPG Honorary Membership Awards are: A.T. “Toby” Carleton,
president of Tocor Exploration in Midland, Texas; Paul A. Catacosinos of
Albuquerque, N.M.; AGI past president (1997-1998) Susan M. Landon of Golden,
Colo.; AGI past president Charles J. Mankin, director of the Oklahoma Geological
Society in Norman, Okla.; and Robert M. Mitchum, president of Robert M.
Mitchum Exploration in Houston.
Milling receives
Iowa honor
The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts honored Marcus Milling,
executive director of the American Geological Institute (AGI) as an Alumni
Fellow on April 10. Milling earned his doctorate in geology from the university
in 1968 before embarking on a career in the petroleum industry. He has
since continued his ties with the university and in the early 1990s served
as chair of the university’s Geology Alumni Advisory Board.
Also named Alumni Fellow was James Hansen, director of
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and a prominent researcher in
global climate change.
New Congressional
Science Fellows
Kathryn
Makeig |
AGI announced its 2000-2001 Congressional Science Fellow, Kathryn Makeig
who will serve for one year as a scientist on Capitol Hill. Makeig will
succeed Eileen McLellan, who is serving as fellow through August on the
staff of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). A member of the American Institute of
Professional Geologists, Makeig is president of Waste Science Inc., an
environmental and engineering consulting firm in Rockville, Md.
Makeig will join Geological Society of America Fellow Rachel Sours-Page
of Oregon State University and American Geophysical Union Fellow Kristen
Cutler of the University of Minnesota as well as 21 other fellows from
science and engineering societies. The AGI fellowship is supported by AGI
Foundation. For more information on the fellowship visit: www.agiweb.org/gapac/csf.html. |
SIPES honors
members
John E. Scherer of Midland, Texas, will receive honorary membership
to the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES), the
society’s highest award. He will receive his award July 21 during the SIPES
annual meeting in Denver, Colo. In the society’s 37-year history only 12
others have become honorary members. The society will also give SIPES Outstanding
Service Awards to James B. Bennett of Houston, Texas, and Lloyd K. Parrish
Jr. of Wichita, Kan.
NAS elects
new members
The National Academy of Sciences announced on May 2 the election of
60 new members and 15 foreign associates from nine countries in recognition
of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Newly elected members include:
Rita R. Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation in Arlington,
Va; professor of geophysics Francis A. Dahlen Jr. of the department of
geological and geophysical sciences at Princeton University, Princeton,
N.J.; William A. Jury, professor of soil physics, department of soil and
environmental sciences, University of California, Riverside; James P. Kennett
of the department of geological sciences, University of California, Santa
Barbara; Robert H. Kraichnan president and principal investigator of Robert
H. Kraichnan Inc., Santa Fe, N.M.; Special Research Scientist Walter C.
Pitman, III of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University,
Palisades, N.Y.; Akkihebal R. Ravishankara, chief, atmospheric chemical
kinetics group, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder,
Colo.; Past AGU President Sean C. Solomon, director of the department of
terrestrial magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington,
D.C.; Shirley Jeffrey, chief marine research scientist at the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Hobart, Australia; A.M.
Celal Sengor, professor of geology at Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul,
Turkey; and Nicholas J. Shackleton, president of the International Union
for Quaternary Research and a professor at the University of Cambridge.
Associate Editor Christina Reed compiles the Society
Page. To post news in the Society Page, send e-mail to geotimes@agiweb.org
with the subject heading “Society Page.”
| Obituary
- Harold L. James
Harold L. James, longtime geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey
and a former chief geologist, died April 2 in Bellingham, Wash. He was
87.
James was born June 11, 1912, in Nanaimo, B.C., Canada, to Welsh-born
parents. He grew up in Nanaimo and Bellingham. In early years, he worked
in lumber mills and as a coal miner in Bellingham. He obtained a bachelor’s
in geology from Washington State University in 1938 and a doctorate from
Princeton in 1945, where he taught mineralogy.
In 1938, James joined the USGS serving as chief geologist from 1965
to 1971. He formally retired from the survey in 1974, but retained official
USGS affiliation as a research geologist until 1996. He served in the USGS
Military Geology Branch during WWII, stationed first in Washington, D.C.,
and then in Hawaii, where he remained until the end of the war. James was
a professor of geology at the University of Minnesota form 1961 to 1965.
He made his primary scientific contributions in economic geology, mainly
by clarifying the geologic history of older Precambrian strata of northern
Michigan. He helped establish the current understanding of the nature and
origin of Precambrian iron formations, including their mineralogic evolution
from sedimentation through metamorphism and how they originated under environmental
conditions different from any that existed in later periods. He also co-authored
the accepted geochronologic subdivision of Precambrian time.
In 1962, James received the U.S. Department of the Interior Distinguished
Service Award. That year he was also elected to the National Academy of
Sciences, where he served as chairman for the Section of Geology from 1969
to 1972.
James was a council member of the Mineralogical Society of America.
He served as a council member for the Geological Society of America and
as the associate editor for the GSA Bulletin from 1964 to 1966. James was
president of the Society of Economic Geologists from 1971 to 1972. He received
the Geological Society of America’s Penrose Medal in 1977 and was chairman
of the Subcommission on Precambrian Stratigraphy for the International
Union of Geological Sciences from 1976 to 1984.
At the National Academy of Sciences, he was a member of the U.S. National
Committee on Geology; the Commission on Natural Resources; the Board on
Mineral and Energy Resources; the Board on Radioactive Waste Management;
and the Report Review Committee.
Obituary
provided courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. |
