Jim,

great - did he work for Kacey Lohmann ?

So- going to NSF starting 1/1/99...host institution will be the University of
Michigan.  papers are not signed yet or even negotiated.  But I have agreed to go
anyway...could be exciting.  I will be the Program Head for Geology and
Paleontology (one of two).  ~5 million dollar grant budget with other budgets to
deal with...sounds very important - perhaps some department will find me
"attractive" after all this --- we'll see.

More later.

Scott

James R. O'Neil wrote:

> A press release from the University of California, San Diego
>
> SCRIPPS GEOLOGIST AWARDED BALZAN PRIZE
>
>         Harmon Craig, a professor of oceanography and geochemistry at the
> Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego,
> has
> been awarded the Balzan Prize for his fundamental contributions to the field
> of geochemistry.  The Balzan Prize of the International Balzan Foundation of
> Milan, Italy, has several times been given in astrophysics and geophysics,
> but
> this is the first award in geochemistry.
>
>         Craig will be presented with the award by the President of Italy  at
> a ceremony to be held in the Palazzo del Quirinale  in Rome on Nov. 23, 1998.
>
>         The Balzan Prize is considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in
> the fields of natural sciences, humanities, social sciences and
> international
> affairs that are not in Nobel awards categories. The Balzan Prize was
> established in 1961 by the late Italian heiress Lina Balzan in memory of her
> father, publisher Eugenio Balzan. Three awards were made this year. Andrzej
> Walicki of Poland and the United States was awarded the prize for history
> and
> Sir Robert May of Australia and the United Kingdom received the award for
> his
> work in biodiversity.
>
>         Craig was recognized by the Balzan Foundation for his work as "a
> pioneer in earth sciences who uses the varied tools of isotope geochemistry
> to
> solve problems of fundamental scientific importance and immediate relevance
> in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and solid earth."
>
>         A faculty member at Scripps since 1955, Craig has ventured to some of
> the remotest spots on Earth in search of elusive gases, rocks and other
> materials that provide clues to the composition of the Earth's interior. In
> his quest, he has descended into the crater of an active underwater volcano,
> led the first dives into the 2-mile-deep Mariana Trough, and sailed atop an
> erupting undersea volcano to collect rock and gas samples.  He has led 28
> deep-sea oceanographic expeditions and has made 17 dives to the bottom of
> the
> ocean in the ALVIN submersible.
>
>         His daresome adventures have yielded a host of significant scientific
> findings that have greatly enriched our understanding of the workings of the
> oceans, atmosphere and deep Earth. In 1969, he and colleagues from McMaster
> University in Canada demonstrated for the first time that helium 3, a rare
> isotope of helium that was trapped in Earth's interior at the time of its
> formation 4.5 billion years ago, is being released from mid-ocean volcanoes
> by
> a process called "degassing" that played a key role in the evolution of the
> atmosphere. Craig went on to use the helium 3 injected into the deep sea to
> track ocean currents, leading him to discover that the Pacific ocean deep
> water circulates in the opposite direction to what scientists had theorized.
>
>         In 1970, Craig joined forces with colleagues at Scripps, Columbia
> University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, and the Woods Hole
> Oceanographic Institution to direct an international project called the
> Geochemical Ocean Sections Study (GEOSECS) for a global investigation of
> chemical and isotopic properties of the world's oceans. Results from this
> program represent the most complete set of ocean chemistry data ever
> collected
> and contributed significantly to the advancement of chemical oceanography.
> One of Craig's discoveries during this program was that lead is rapidly
> scavenged from the deep sea by particulate material, which turned out to be
> the major route by which many trace metals are removed from the ocean.
> Later
> Craig led two expeditions on Lake Tanganyika, using the GEOSECS methodology
> to
> study the geochemistry and limnology of this 4600-foot-deep lake.
>
>         Craig and colleagues went on to discover the existence of submarine
> hydrothermal vents in the Galapagos seafloor spreading center, using the
> Scripps "Deep-Tow" vehicle to measure helium 3 and radon along the axis
> where
> the tectonic plates are rifting apart.  Using the submersible ALVIN, he
> discovered similar vents in the caldera of an active volcano called Loihi,
> located 3,000 feet below the sea surface, that is erupting to form the next
> Hawaiian island.  Another journey aboard ALVIN, into the Mariana Trough,
> discovered hydrothermal vents nearly 12,000 feet deep.
>
>         Craig also analyzed gases trapped in Greenland ice cores and showed
> that the methane content of the atmosphere has doubled over the past three
> hundred years, a finding which is important for studies of the atmospheric
> greenhouse effect.  He is currently measuring temperatures of past
> glaciations, using his discovery of gravitational enrichment of heavy noble
> gases in the air trapped in polar ice cores.
>
>         Other projects have taken Craig to sample volcanic rocks and gases
> throughout the East African Rift Valley from Northern Ethiopia to Lake
> Nyasa,
> and to the Dead Sea, Tibet, and Yunnan, China.  He has made field
> expeditions
> to all the major volcanic island chains of the Pacific and Indian Oceans
> collecting lava samples.  Craig's goal was to delineate mantle hotspots
> where
> volcanic "plumes" are rising from the earth's core through the deep mantle
> and
> can be identified by their primordial helium 3 content.  He has identified
> sixteen such hotspots where the helium 3 to helium 4 ratio is much higher
> than
> in the upper mantle and crust of the earth, fourteen in oceanic islands, and
> two on the continents, in Ethiopia and Yellowstone Park.
>
>         In 1972, Craig and his wife Valerie showed that carbon and oxygen
> isotopes can be used to determine the provenance of marbles used in ancient
> Greek sculptures and temples, a study that is still continuing.
>
>         Born in New York City on March 15, 1926, Craig did his thesis on
> carbon isotope geochemistry under Nobel Laureate Harold Urey. After
> receiving
> a Ph.D. in geology-geochemistry from the University of Chicago in 1951,
> Craig
> stayed on as a research associate at  the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear
> Studies at the University of Chicago.  During this time he and Urey
> discovered
> that meteorites fall into discrete groups based on their oxidation states
> and
> content of iron.  He went on to study the distribution of heavy hydrogen
> (deuterium) and oxygen isotopes in natural waters, establishing the "Global
> Meteoric Water" relationship of these isotopes which has become fundamental
> for studies in hydrology and climatology.
>
>         In recognition of his scientific achievements, Craig has received
> many honors. He was elected to membership in the  National Academy of
> Sciences
> in 1979.  He received the V.M. Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society
> in 1979, the National Science Foundation "Special Creativity" Award in
> Oceanography in 1982, the Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of
> America in 1983, and the honorary degree of Docteur (Honoris Causa) of the
> University de Paris (Pierre et Marie Curie) in 1983.  In 1987, he was
> awarded
> the Arthur L. Day Prize of the National Academy of Sciences and was
> co-recipient of the Vetlesen Prize from Columbia University.  In 1991, he
> was
> awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Chicago, and in
> 1993 he was named an honorary fellow of the European Union of Geosciences.
>
>                                 ###
>
> More information on the Balzan Prize can be found at www.balzan.it/newsgb.htm
> Scripps Institution of Oceanography on the World Wide Web:
> http://sio.ucsd.edu
>
> James R. O'Neil
> Institute for Geochemistry
> University of Tuebingen
> Wilhelmstr. 56
> D-72074 Tuebingen
> Germany
>
> Tel: (0)7071 29 72602
> Fax: (0)7071 29 5713

--
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Scott J. Carpenter
Assistant Professor

Phone:        (972) 883-2481
FAX:          (972) 883-2537
Laboratory:   (972) 883-2632

U.S. Mail:                            UPS/Federal Express:

Department of Geosciences             Department of Geosciences
The University of Texas at Dallas     The University of Texas at Dallas
P.O. Box 830688                       2601 N. Floyd Road
Richardson, TX  75083-0688            Richardson, TX  75080

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