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Bancroft Award
- 2010 - Frank C. Hawthorne, FRSC
- 2008 - A.E. (Willy) Williams-Jones, FRSC
- 2006 - David J. Dunlop, FRSC
- 2004 - William Richard Peltier, FRSC
- 2002 - John J. Clague, FRSC
- 2000 - Jan Veizer, FRSC
- 1996 - Dale A. Russell
- 1994 - Alan V. Morgan
- 1992 - Godfrey S. Nowlan
- 1990 - Steven D. Scott, FRSC
- 1986 - Derek York, FRSC
- 1984 - Jack G. Souther
- 1982 - Christopher R. Barnes, FRSC
- 1980 - William W. Hutchison
- 1978 - Frank Kenneth North
- 1976 - Roger A. Blais
- 1975 - E. R. Ward Neale, FRSC
- 1970 - David M. Baird, FRSC
- 1968 - John Tuzo Wilson, FRSC
Top of Page2010 - Frank C. Hawthorne, FRSC
Frank Hawthorne has investigated some of the most fundamental problems in mineralogy and has made major contributions to our understanding of the factors affecting atomic arrangements in minerals. He is well known for his ability to synthetize current knowledge and present the essentials in a clear and succinct fashion to the broader community.
2008 - A.E. (Willy) Williams-Jones, FRSC
David J. Dunlop is a world authority on the magnetic behaviour of rocks and minerals and the memory they preserve of ancient plate motions, particularly in the Precambrian. Dr. Dunlop has been a featured keynote speaker at major international meetings in Italy, Japan, France, the UK and the USA. He and Ozden Ozdemir co-authored the standard book on rock magnetism.
2006 - David J. Dunlop, FRSC
Department of Physics, University of Toronto at Mississauga
David J. Dunlop is a world authority on the magnetic behaviour of rocks and minerals and the memory they preserve of ancient plate motions, particularly in the Precambrian. Dr. Dunlop has been a featured keynote speaker at major international meetings in Italy, Japan, France, the UK and the USA. He and Ozden Ozdemir co-authored the standard book on rock magnetism.
2004 - William Richard Peltier, FRSC
Professor Richard Peltier, FRSC, Professor in the Department of Physics, University of Toronto, ranks among the world's top Earth Scientists and his work has touched deeply on both surface and subsurface geological processes. His early pioneering work on the mathematical theory of glacial processes has provided tremendous insight into the effective viscosity of the deep Earth and the thickness variations of continental ice cover that have occurred since the Last Glacial Maximum, revitalized this area of research and is used internationally to help reconstruct Ice-age climate. In addition, his models of intermittent mantle convection processes have provided insight into understanding supercontinent creation and destruction. These two fields of research have come together in Professor Peltier's work on the climate system, especially involving efforts to reconstruct the surface climate of the Earth at selected epochs in both the relatively recent and deep past. His personal contributions to this field as well as the leadership he has provided to national collaborative programs have led to profound insights concerning climate cycles and the evolution of life on this planet. Professor Peltier is highly sought after as a keynote speaker at major international forums on geological and geophysical processes and his training to date of 33 Ph.D. students has contributed to Canada's strong pre-eminence in Earth Sciences.
2002 - John J. Clague, FRSC
John J. Clague, FRSC, Professor and Shrum Chair of Science, Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University, is probably Canada's outstanding Quaternary geologist/geomorphologist. He has reached out to other disciplines and has always been cognizant of the practical value of his research. Thus, he has improved public and government awareness of natural hazards in Canada by researching, publishing and lecturing on earthquakes, landslides, floods and sea-level rise and by advising decision makers on these phenomena. Equally important, he has shared his knowledge with a broad segment of his fellow citizens through presentations to high school students, teachers, service clubs, professional groups and others. He has given innumerable radio and T.V. interviews at both local and national levels and his research has been featured in newspaper and popular magazine articles.
Recently, with colleague Robert Turner, he has produced an innovative suite of posters and maps that have revolutionized the presentation of earth science to the public. This team currently has to its credit, the award-winning, best-selling : Geoscape Vancouver, GeoMap Vancouver, Vancouver Landscapes and the climate-change poster, Temperature Rising. All feature a clear, jargon-free science text and visually appealing graphics. All have benefited from John's editorial skills. As current President of the Canadian Geoscience Education Network he has helped introduce this approach to individuals and organizations across the country and thirteen geoscape and six climate change posters have been, or soon will be, published for other urban centres.
2000 - Jan Veizer, FRSC
Dr. Jan Veizer is Professor of Geology and the NSERC/Noranda/CIAR Chair in Earth Systems at the University of Ottawa and Professor and Chair of Sediment- and Isotope-Geology at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. His accomplishments in developing and disseminating new scientific concepts in the Earth Sciences have figured prominently in the public's understanding and appreciation of the Earth System science.
Jan Veizer is one of the most creative, innovative and productive geoscientists of our times. He has generated entirely new concepts that have proven key in our understanding the geochemical history of Earth. For the past seven years, he has been the director of the Earth System Evolution Program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research (CIAR). He has brought together a diverse group of geoscientists and led them in the study of quantitative evolution of the Earth System on geological time scales.
Dr. Veizer has a long commitment in sharing his geochemical knowledge of how the Earth works. As Director of the CIAR Earth System program, he has been instrumental in organizing meetings that for the first time gathered representatives from the research, educational, media, public and private sectors to discuss and debate questions of critical importance to planet Earth.
1996 - Dale A. Russell
Dale Russell is one of the world's leading vertebrate paleontologists, with a particular research focus on Cretaceous dinosaurs. He has undertaken painstaking field and laboratory research involving collections from several continents. He has worked tirelessly to understand the ecology, life habit, trophic structure and taphonomy (preservational aspects) of dinosaurs and these results have allowed him to offer constructive interpretations as to their extinction. Dr. Russell is internally known for his public lectures, television and media presentations, and his exceptional books oriented to the general public, notably A vanished world: the dinosaurs of western Canada (1977) and An odyssey in time: the dinosaurs of North America (1989). In both, he worked with Eleanor Kish to develop new pictoral dioramas of the evolving Mesozoic landscape and biotas. He has used his abundant scholarship and communication skills to transmit the essence of this exciting topic to the public passionately yet without distortion. He has made outstanding contributions to scientific research and successfully communicates his new ideas in vertebrate palaeontology, extinction, and the theories of extra-terrestrial effects on the global biota to an eager public.
1994 - Alan V. Morgan
Alan Morgan, co-editor of OYEZ3 and professor at the University of Waterloo, is a respected earth scientist who has successfully reached into living rooms and classrooms across the nation. His 1974 film of Iceland's Heimaey Eruption was made into a documentary by CBC, was picked up by PBS in the USA, and continues to be viewed by millions around the world. A later (1990) video on Global Change has also been a great success. His Careers in Geoscience booklet quickly ran through 43,000 copies and is now in second printing. His Waterloo newsletter Wat on Earth is a favourite among high school teachers. He has presented over 400 popular earth science lectures to a wide variety of audiences. Additionally, he has served his discipline for over two decades by occupying senior executive posts in national and international societies.
1992 - Godfrey S. Nowlan
An internationally recognized earth scientist, Godfrey Nowlan has made major contributions to micropaleontology and stratigraphy and has influenced research as Chief Paleontologist of the Geological Survey of Canada. He has also been involved with public awareness of science for many years. Godfrey initially devoted himself to public lectures and visits to classrooms, but more recently, he has become involved with science posters, a video, and a very successful Pet Rock and Fossil Clinics. His unique contribution has been leadership of the Calgary Science Network which has brought together scientists and engineers from many disciplines, representing several institutions and local chapters of many national societies. The Network's successes include co-ordination of Calgary's National Science and Technology Week activities and the establishment of a Science Hotline, which brings a large corps of trained volunteers within a phone call of 5,000 science classrooms that serve 100,000 students. It is hoped that the Network will serve as a national model.
Godfrey Nowlan also won the 1996 McNeil Medal.
1990 - Steven D. Scott, FRSC
Dr. Scott has made major contributions to research in earth science. His research has centred on an endeavour to understand hydrothermal systems and massive sulphide deposits. He has examined the tectonics of the modern sea floor to assess their relationship to ancient ores on land (work involving undersea expeditions) and has also worked on the phase equilibria and reaction kinetics of sulphide systems. In addition to an outstanding research career, Dr. Scott has devoted enormous energy and enthusiasm to publicizing and popularizing earth sciences. He has delivered more than 300 lectures to his peers, and has made himself available to journalists to reach the public at large. Dr. Scott also served as technical consultant and subject-of-interest to PBS's Emmy-award winning "Planet Earth" series in 1985.
Dr. Scott was born in Fort Frances, Ontario in 1941 and earned his B.Sc. (1963) and M.Sc. (1964) at the University of Western Ontario, and his Ph.D. (1968) at Pennsylvania State University. He joined the University of Toronto in 1969, where he is currently Chair of the Division of Geological and Mineral Engineering. He has held several Distinguished Lectureships, including the Esso Distinguished Lecturer (Earth Sciences Foundation, Australia) and the Lindsley Distinguished Lecturer (Society of Economic Geologists), and has spoken extensively in Australia, the USA, Japan, Sweden and Canada. Since 1982, Dr. Scott has participated in more than twenty oceanographic expeditions including Tuzo Wilson Seamounts, Juan de Fuca Ridge, Explorer Ridge, and Western Woodlark Basin.
1986 - Derek York, FRSC
Professor Derek York received his early education in physics and earth science at Oxford University. During this period he became strongly interested in the use of unstable isotopes for the dating of rocks (the science of geochronology). After arriving in Toronto he quickly became a leader in the field of potassium-argon dating and was responsible for developing novel methodology in the field. One of his papers on a general method of least squares fitting of data is used now by all isotope laboratories throughout the world. During the Apollo missions to the moon, NASA appointed him to the prestigious position of Foreign Principal Investigator, in recognition of his preeminence in high resolution geochronotogy. He is the author of two books on the age of the earth; both of these have been translated into several languages.
Dr. York has developed an entirely new approach to dating rocks using a continuous laser beam to fuse rocks and release the trapped gases which are subsequently analysed for their isotopic content using ultra-sensitive mass spectrometry. This has had a major impact for physicists, geologists, mineralogists, and anthropologists studying the age of rocks, mineral deposits, fossil bones, meteorite impact craters, and evolution of ancient humans, to mention just a few areas. Professor York's contributions to geochronology have been characterized by his continual quest for new methods, leading him and his associates to date some of the oldest rocks on earth (and the moon) and some of the youngest.
In addition to these major contributions, he has developed a break-through in linking the age of a rock or mineral grain to the temperature at which it cooled (the science of thermochronometry). This has provided major insights into the tectonic and etamorphic history of the earth. He has linked these thermochronometric methods to paleomagnetic studies. Ancient magnetic fields are "frozen" into rocks and minerals at characteristic temperatures. This novel approach linking the magnetic blocking temperature to the isotope blocking temperature has provided major insights into the intensity of the magnetic field of the very early earth, the size of its core, the nature of the mantle, and the relative motion of the constituent plates of the earth's crust. His recent work has been involved with anthropologists working out the geochronology of early humans and thereby the rate at which hominids evolved. His work to date has yielded precise dates circumscribing the age of the famous "Lucy" finds in Ethiopia.
Professor York, in addition to his continuing intensive involvement in the above innovative work, somehow finds time to transmit the excitement of science as a regular contributor to the Science Section of the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. In the last two years he has proved to be a talented popular science writer, translating the stuffy language of science into terms readily appreciated by the lay public.
He currently heads the world's largest argon-argon geochronology laboratory and is consulted by scientists internationally. He has lectured on his work all over the world, bringing to the University of Toronto international acclaim. In 1985 he was awarded the Past-President's Medal of the Geological Association of Canada and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Jack Souther is a leading authority on Cordilleran volcanism and geothermal resources. Because of his ability to present scientific concepts in a lucid and informative way, he has long been in demand as a lecturer to lay audiences, as a principal in media interviews, as a participant in radio and television open-line shows, and as a central figure in television documentaries dealing with his scientific specialty. Following the eruption of Mount Saint Helens his talents for communication became ever more widely recognized, as he responded authoritatively and eloquently to a vast demand for information.
1982 - Christopher R. Barnes, FRSC
Christopher Barnes, Department of Geology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, is one of our best-known scientists because of his many services to the community of science, his success in integrating and unifying the efforts of Canadian geoscientists, and his efforts to bring the messages of geoscience to a wide segment of the public. He is widely credited with building the Geological Association of Canada into the thriving, truly representative national organization it has become. As a member and later President of the Canadian Geoscience Council, he was a major force behind producing state-of-the-art reports on the whole of national geoscience, bringing geoscientists together with those from other disciplines to discuss problems of national concern in open forums, and publishing geoscience career booklets now used in virtually every high school in the country.
Barnes's concern with public awareness of science has been directed at several levels, as exemplified by a symposium on disposal of high level radioactive waste, which he organized in 1978. The published proceedings were aimed at a broad peer group of scientists and engineers. His own specialty, research on the fossils known as conodonts, has won him Fellowship in this Society and other prestigious national awards. It also offers another example of multi-level dissemination of information. Not limiting himself to specialized journals, he has presented entertaining and informative accounts of the enigmatic conodont animal for the benefit of high school students and the general public.
1980 - William W. Hutchison
Much of the credit for the sense of community that has grown up in Canadian geoscience over the past decade is due to the work and influence of W. W. Hutchison. In more recent years, some of his energies have been successfully shifted to the international sphere, where again he is building up a sense of rapport and cooperation.
Bill Hutchison was the catalyst who welded the many geoscientists of British Columbia into the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Association of Canada in 1970. Still the largest and most active group in the Association, it has served as a model for the many other sections and divisions that have come into being, many of them while he held the national presidency during 1973-74. In 1970 he also founded the national news magazine, Geolog, and for five years singlehandedly compiled, edited, and processed this amazingly successful quarterly. By providing a regular means of communication and acting as a sounding board, it has served as a major unifying force for geoscientists spread out across Canada.
When he was appointed secretary-general of the International Union of Geological Sciences in 1978, Hutchison initiated a new quarterly, Episodes, which achieved immediate acclaim through its thought-provoking editorials, semi-popular articles on scientific and engineering topics, and comprehensive reviews. Episodes has subscribers in eighty-three countries and responses to its first eight issues suggest that it has filled a unique niche, that its contents appeal to all segments of geoscience and that it has also attracted a wide following among those in other sciences and in resource policy positions.
Most of his leadership in co-operation and communication has been undertaken as a labour of love. Bill Hutchison is an accomplished scientist whose work on the Geological Survey's Coast Mountain Project between 1962 and 1973 developed many new field and laboratory approaches to regional synthesis. His final massive memoir on this subject is scheduled for publication in 1980. The Coast Range study led him into data manipulation and this in turn led to his appointment as head of the Survey's data systems group in 1974. Here he introduced computer-plotted geological maps and other aspects of data display. This led to his election as chairman of COGEODATA, the IUGS committee on storage and retrieval, and to several publications on data management and methods of mineral resource evaluation. It is not for his scientific accomplishments, however, but for his energy in successfully spreading the messages of geoscience, that he receives the Bancroft Award. In his presidential address to the Geological Association of Canada, entitled "Le Défi Canadien", he concluded that "a prime problem is that of communication". No one in Canadian geoscience has addressed himself more assiduously to the solution of this problem than W. W. Hutchison.
1978 - Frank Kenneth North
F. K. North was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1919. His undergraduate studies in Oxford, begun in 1937, were interrupted by the Second World War, in which he served for almost six years in the British Army, rising to the rank of captain in the Royal Artillery with service in India, Burma, and Southeast Asia. He returned to Oxford after the war, graduating in 1947 with first-class honours in geology. He emigrated to Canada, taught and studied for four years at the University of British Columbia, and received his Ph.D. in 1951. He then spent ten years with Standard Oil as an oil geologist in western Canada and Latin America. He became a senior staff geologist specializing in the geology of the Alberta basin, western Canada, and Meso-America.
Since 1961 he has been professor of geology at Carleton University. His introductory course reaches many students, most of whom enter professions other than geology, giving them an enlightened view of the energy problems that are so important for Canada's future. In his research he has specialized in the geological development of oil and gas basins, their distribution in space and time, their resource potential and its importance for governmental resource policies. From both his industrial and his academic research Professor North has acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of the oil and gas basins of North America and the world. In 1955, while he was still working in industry, he received, jointly with G. G. L. Henderson, the Medal of Merit of the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists. In 1974 he was chosen to give the distinguished lecture tour of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and his lectures, delivered to earth sciences institutions across Canada, were a clear and prophetic statement of the very great problems that must be faced by Canadians regarding their oil and gas resources. Since 1974 he has served as the chairman of the Canadian Committee for the International Geological Correlation Program.
In the 1960s an optimistic view prevailed both in the oil and gas industry and in governments regarding the petroleum and gas situation in Canada. Professor North believed this optimism to be unfounded. He based his belief on wide knowledge and careful assessments of each sedimentary basin. Through public lectures, articles in newspapers and journals, radio and television interviews, and submissions to government agencies, Professor North, more than any other Canadian, brought to the attention of a wide public the serious problems in Canada's oil and gas supply. Although other eminent scientists soon echoed his opinions, it was Professor North who first began to express publicly doubts about the future liquid hydrocarbon supply in what was then a climate of uncritical optimism. His honest and forthright approach, accompanied by good science, won him wide respect, not only from the public at large, but eventually from professional people in government and the petroleum industry.
Through his personal research, publications, and extensive efforts to provide information to the public, Professor North has made a fundamental contribution to our awareness of the importance of earth sciences in energy resource studies.
Citation available in French only.
1975 - E. R. Ward Neale, FRSC
E. R. Ward Neale is a distinguished geologist who over many years has conspicuously contributed to scientific research concerned chiefly with the Appalachian region of Atlantic Canada, first with the Geological Survey of Canada and later as head of the Department of Geology at Memorial University. He and his research team contributed to our understanding of the large-scale structure of the northern Appalachian Mountains and shared (with John Rodgers of Yale) in first recognition of the transported oceanic rocks that overlie ancient shelf deposits in western Newfoundland. The Memorial University geologists provided the basis for adaptation of plate tectonic theory to Paleozoic mountain-building processes. Dr. Neale promptly conveyed the excitement of these and other recent discoveries to students and the general public through radio, television, pamphlets, booklets, news magazines, and the popular press. It is said that in Newfoundland plate tectonics and continental collisions now rank with the price of salt fish and the evils of regional disparity as favourite domestic topics.
The Neale messages have not been confined to the Appalachians and to an Atlantic audience. As Commonwealth Geological Liaison Officer in London he stimulated productive exchanges between developing countries. At the International Geological Congress of 1972 in Montreal he organized a symposium on earth science aid to developing countries which proved to be the initial step in the recent formation of an international association of geoscientists concerned with external aid. Much of his activity in Canadian geoscience societies has involved public education and information. An early product of such interest was this Society's special volume on the Earth Sciences in Canada published in 1968; the most recent was his involvement in a first report of similar title produced by the Canadian Geoscience Council in 1975.
Through research, publications, and efforts in public information, Professor Neale has contributed much to the awareness and appreciation of the earth sciences in Canada.
1970 - David M. Baird, FRSC
David McCurdy Baird has been selected as second recipient of the Bancroft Award because of his success in communicating knowledge and appreciation of geology to Canadians. Dr Baird's earlier work as director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland is recorded in several dozen publications on the geology, mines, and mineral resources of that province. On his subsequent appointment as head of the Department of Geology, University of Ottawa, he began reaching a far wider audience by broadcasts, over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation networks, of several series of radio and television programs on geology, including a noteworthy series on "University of the Air," later published in book form. In 1960 Dr. Baird began the writing of a series of twelve beautifully illustrated books on the geology of the National Parks of Canada. These have proved extremely popular; the first edition of 5,000 copies of the one on Banff National Park was exhausted in the first year after publication. Since Dr. Baird's appointment as the first director of the National Museum of Science and Technology three short years ago, this institution, in spite of its being housed in a temporary building, has become one of the most popular of its kind in Canada. Each week thousands of visitors come to learn about the facts and laws of the physical sciences by actual participation and involvement in the exhibits and demonstrations; it is a dynamic, living museum in which it is fun to learn. The enthusiasm with which Dr. Baird communicates knowledge to the public at large in geology and the other physical sciences is matched only by the enthusiasm with which this knowledge is received.
1968 - John Tuzo Wilson, FRSC
Professor John Tuzo Wilson was selected as first recipient of the Bancroft Award because of the outstanding success he has achieved in conveying new concepts in the earth sciences to those in other disciplines and to the general public in Canada and abroad. Throughout the thirty years that he has been in the forefront of earth science research, he has always been willing to take the time to communicate something of the excitement of scientific investigation and discovery to a wide audience. This he has done by public lectures, press interviews, appearances on television and radio, and by two superb books which provide popular accounts of his scientific travels during the International Geophysical Year. The enthusiasm with which he has tackled major problems concerning the origin and development of the earth carried over into his explanation of these problems to non-scientists, and both cultures have profited greatly from the bridge he has provided.