The Professorship of Mineralogy and Petrology is a statutory professorship at the University of Cambridge. It was created in 1931 [1] [2] following the simultaneous retirements of Alfred Harker, from the post of Reader in Petrology in the Department of Geology, Cambridge; and of Arthur Hutchinson, Professor of Mineralogy. A committee of the Council of the Senate of the university proposed that these two posts be discontinued, and the remit of the Professorship of Mineralogy be expanded to include the disciplines of petrology and crystallography. [3] The Professorship was established in the newly created Department of Mineralogy and Petrology. [4] The first incumbent was Prof Cecil Edgar Tilley, who was appointed in 1931. Tilley was succeeded in 1961 by William Alexander Deer. [5] Since 1980, and following the appointment of Ron Oxburgh, the Professorship has been associated with the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge. The other statutory professorships in this department are the Woodwardian Professor of Geology, the Professor of Geophysics, established in 1966, and the recently endowed BP Foundation McKenzie Professorship of Earth Sciences, established in 2010. [6]
The Disney Professorship of Archaeology is an endowed chair in archaeology at the University of Cambridge. It was endowed by English barrister and antiquarian John Disney in 1851 with a donation of £1,000. He arranged for a further £3,500 bequest upon his death in 1857.
The Professorship of Mineralogy was a professorship at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1808 and discontinued when its final holder retired in 1931. It was replaced by the Professorship of Mineralogy and Petrology.
The Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge is the University of Cambridge's Earth Sciences department. First formed around 1731, the department incorporates the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.
Ernest Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh, is an English geologist, geophysicist and politician. Lord Oxburgh is well known for his work as a public advocate in both academia and the business world in addressing the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop alternative energy sources as well as his negative views on the consequences of current oil consumption.
Alfred Harker FRS was an English geologist who specialised in petrology and interpretive petrography. He was Lecturer in Petrology at the University of Cambridge for many years, and carried out field mapping for the Geological Survey of Scotland and geological studies of western Scotland and the Isle of Skye. He and other British geologists pioneered the use of thin sections and the petrographic microscope in interpretive petrology.
Cecil Edgar Tilley FRS HonFRSE PGS was an Australian-British petrologist and geologist.
W. Gary Ernst is an American geologist specializing in petrology and geochemistry. He currently is the Benjamin M. Page Professor Emeritus in Stanford University's Department of Geological Sciences.
Ekhard Karl Hermann Salje, FRS is an Emeritus Professor, and formerly Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University.
The Faculty of Geology is part of the School of Sciences in National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Stuart Olof Agrell was an optical mineralogist and a pioneer in applications of the electron microprobe to petrology. His involvement as a principal investigator in the analysis of Moon rocks collected in the Apollo program brought him to the attention of the British media and public.
Jonathan David Blundy FRS is Royal Society Research Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and honorary professor at the University of Bristol.
William Alexander (Alex) Deer FRS was a distinguished British geologist, petrologist and mineralogist.
Mount Tilley is a flat-topped, ice-capped mountain, rising to about 1,900 m, lying about 7 nautical miles (13 km) south of Mount Tyrrell and 3 nautical miles (6 km) inland from George VI Sound in the east part of Alexander Island, Antarctica. Despite its height, it is best described as a foothill of the Douglas Range, from which it is separated by Toynbee Glacier. The mountain was first photographed from the air in 1936 by the British Graham Land Expedition. Surveyed in 1948 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and named by them for Cecil E. Tilley, professor of mineralogy and petrology at Cambridge University.
Bernard (Bernie) Wood is a British geologist, and professor of mineralogy and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford. He specializes in the thermodynamics of geological systems, using experimental techniques. He is a prominent figure in the field of experimental petrology, having received multiple awards throughout his career and taught at several universities worldwide.
Johnson Robin ('Joe') Cann FRS is a British geologist.
Sir Alexander Norman Halliday is a British geochemist and academic who is the Founding Dean of the Columbia Climate School, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He joined the Earth Institute in April 2018, after spending more than a decade at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, during which time he was dean of science and engineering. He is also a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.
Germaine Anne Joplin was an Australian geologist and winner of the Clarke Medal in 1963.
Donald Bruce Dingwell is a Canadian geoscientist who is the director of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Ordinarius for Mineralogy and Petrology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He is also currently vice-president of the Academia Europaea. From September 2011 to December 2013 he was the third and last secretary general of the European Research Council (ERC) where he embarked on a global participation campaign for the ERC. He is also a past-President of the European Geosciences Union and the current past-president of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI), founded in 1919.
J. Frank Schairer was an American geochemist, mineralogist, and petrologist.
Marian Barbara Holness is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.