Francis Birch Lecture

Last updated

The Francis Birch Lecture is an annual lecture constituting the highest honor in tectonophysics from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The lecture is named in honor of Francis Birch, famous as a pioneer of solid Earth geophysics. The Birch Lecture, inaugurated in 1992, is presented at the AGU autumn meeting by a recipient whose research has significantly contributed to tectonophysics "through observations, experiments, the development of analytical methods or modeling." [1]

Contents

The Birch Lecture forms part of the AGU's Bowie Lecture Series, established in 1989. The AGU's highest honor is the William Bowie Medal, named in honor of William Bowie — the AGU's first president [2] with an international reputation in geodesy, geophysics, and engineering. [3]

The AGU invites the Birch Lecturer and does not accept nominations for the Birch Lectureship. [2]

Birch Lecturers

Name [1] InstitutionYearLecture Title
Thomas A. Herring Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1992Space Geodetic Studies of the Earth's Interior
James R. Rice Harvard University 1993Problems in Earthquake Source Mechanics
no lecture1994
Harry W. Green II University of California, Davis 1995The mechanisms of Deep Earthquakes
Ross S. Stein United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park 1996Stress Triggering of Earthquakes, or Playing Prediction with Less than Half a Deck
Donald W. Forsyth Brown University 1997Melting and Mantle Flow Beneath Mid-Ocean Ridges: Constraints from the Seismological Component of the MELT Experiment
Richard G. Gordon Northwestern University 1998The Plate Tectonic Approximation: Plate Nonrigidity and Diffuse Plate Boundaries
Paul Tapponnier Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris 1999Localisation and Propagation of Lithospheric Shear Zones Behaviour of the Continental Mantle During Collision, and Growth of the Tibet Plateau
no lecture2000
Louise H. Kellogg University of California, Davis 2001Structure and Dynamics An Earth Odyssey
Gerald Schubert UCLA 2002A Geophysicist's Journey to the Center of the Earth
W. Roger Buck Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)2003Splitting, Stretching and Spreading of Lithosphere
Shun-Ichiro Karato Yale University 2004Where on Earth is the Ocean?
Leigh Royden Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2005Uplift and Evolution of the Eastern Tibetan Plateau
Claude P. Jaupart Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris 2006The Deep Roots of Continents
Jean-Philippe Avouac California Institute of Technology 2007Mountain Ranges and the Deformation of Continents
Suzanne M. Carbotte Columbia University 2008Focusing in on Mid-Ocean Ridge Segmentation
Jerry X. Mitrovica Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University 2009A Eulogy for Eustasy
Wang-Ping Chen University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 2010Global Tectonics Ties Quakes, Rocks, and Volatiles in the Mantle Transition Zone
Michael Manga University of California, Berkeley 2011Hydrological Response to Earthquakes (and was the LUSI Mud Volcano Eruption in Indonesia Caused by an Earthquake?)
Richard H. Sibson Otago University 2012Inside a Crustal Earthquake — Signals from Field Geology
Roland Bürgmann University of California, Berkeley 2013M9 Megathrust Earthquake Cycles
David Bercovici Yale University 2014On the Origin of Plate Tectonics
Kelin Wang Pacific Geoscience Center, Geological Survey of Canada 2015Subduction Faults as We See Them in the 21st Century
Maya Tolstoy Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory 2016Taking the Pulse of Mid-Ocean Ridges
Greg Hirth Brown University 2017Lithospheric Strength and Stress State: Persistent Challenges and New Directions in Geodynamics
Carolina R. Lithgow-Bertelloni UCLA 2018The inevitable control of Earth's deep interior on the surface
Claudio Faccenna Roma Tre University / University of Texas at Austin 2019Shaping the Mediterranean from the inside out
Christie D. Rowe McGill University 2020Walking the seismogenic zone: A field geology perspective on earthquakes
Taras Gerya ETH Zürich 2021New geodynamic processes and phenomena discovered with numerical modeling: examples and recipes
Demian M. Saffer University of Texas Institute for Geophysics 2022Fluids, Friction, and the Offshore Subduction Megathrust
Philippe Agard Sorbonne Université 2023

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Geophysical Union</span> Nonprofit organization of geophysicists

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international fields within the Earth and space sciences. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas: atmospheric and ocean sciences; solid-Earth sciences; hydrologic sciences; and space sciences. The organization's headquarters is located on Florida Avenue in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bowie (engineer)</span> American geodetic engineer

William Bowie, B.S., C.E., M.A. was an American geodetic engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rafael L. Bras</span> Puerto Rican civil engineer

Rafael Luis Bras is a Puerto Rican civil engineer best known for his contributions in surface hydrology and hydrometeorology, including his work in soil-vegetation-atmosphere system modeling.

The William Bowie Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union for "outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research". The award is the highest honor given by the AGU and is named in honor of William Bowie, one of the co-founders of the Union.

The Fred Whipple Award, established in 1989 by the Planetary Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union, is presented to an individual who makes an outstanding contribution to the field of planetary science. The award was established to honor Fred Whipple. The Whipple Award includes an opportunity to present an invited lecture during the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Birch (geophysicist)</span> American geophysicist

Albert Francis Birch was an American geophysicist. He is considered one of the founders of solid Earth geophysics. He is also known for his part in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The James B. Macelwane Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union to three to five early career scientists. It is named after James B. Macelwane, a Jesuit priest and one of the pioneers of seismology. The medal is regarded as the highest honor for young scientists in the field of Geological and Planetary Sciences. In 1984, Mary Hudson became the first woman to receive the award.

Two international geophysical societies offer awards each year which are named in honor of Maurice Ewing; these are the American Geophysical Union and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

The Robert E. Horton Medal is given out by the American Geophysical Union to recognize "outstanding contributions to the geophysical aspects of hydrology". The award was created in 1974 and named after Robert E. Horton to honor his contributions to the study of the hydrologic cycle. It was awarded biennially until 1995 and then annually thereafter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis J. Lanzerotti</span>

Louis John Lanzerotti is an American physicist. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of physics in the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferhat Ozcep</span> Turkish geophysicist (1968–2023)

Ferhat Ozcep was a geophysicist and historian of science in Turkey. He was born in Zonguldak on 23 January 1968. He was a visiting scholar in the Department of the Science at Harvard University. He was professor of geophysics at Istanbul University.

Donald Lawson Turcotte is an American geophysicist most noted for his work on the boundary layer theory of mantle convection as part of the theory of plate tectonics. He works at the University of California, Davis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Romanowicz</span> French-American physicist and seismologist

Barbara A. Romanowicz is a French geophysicist and an expert on imaging the Earth's interior.

Alik Ismail-Zadeh is a mathematical geophysicist known for his contribution to computational geodynamics and natural hazard studies, pioneering work on data assimilation in geodynamics as well as for outstanding service to the Earth and space science community. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

William L. Ellsworth is an American seismologist who is a research faculty member at Stanford University. His research covers a range of topics of earthquake science focusing on the physics of earthquake nucleation, earthquake hazard assessment, and active fault processes as studied through earthquakes. He is the 2021 recipient of the Harry Fielding Reid medal, the highest honor of the Seismological Society of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upmanu Lall</span> American Earth Scientist

Upmanu Lall is an Indian-American engineer and the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering at Columbia University. He serves as Director of the Columbia Water Center. Lall studies water scarcity and how to predict and mitigate floods. He was named an American Geophysical Union Fellow in 2017 and their Walter Langbein Lecturer in 2022. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018, and has received the Arid Lands Hydrology and the Ven Te Chow Awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In April 2021 he was named to the “Hot List of the world’s 1,000 top climate scientists” by Reuters.

Kelin Wang is a senior research scientist and has worked for the Geological Survey of Canada since 1992. His research encompasses geodynamics and natural hazards, with major contributions in researching slow-slip events along the Cascadia subduction interface.

Richard G. Gordon is an American geophysicist, known for his research on global tectonics, including global plate motions and palaeomagnetism. He is noteworthy for leading two global plate motion projects: NUVEL and MORVEL. In the geosciences, NUVEL and MORVEL are standard models for global plate motions.

References

  1. 1 2 "Birch Lecture & Birch Lecturers, Awards - Tectonophysics". American Geophysical Union.
  2. 1 2 "Francis Birch Lecture, Recognizing Geophysics Scientists". American Geophysical Union.
  3. Soler, Tomás (2014). "William Bowie: Eminent Scientist and First Chairman (1926–1940) of ASCE's Surveying and Mapping Division". Journal of Surveying Engineering. 140: 2–11. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)SU.1943-5428.0000117.