2020 Harry H. HESS Medal of the American Geophysical Union to Donald B. Dingwell#

The 2020 Harry H. HESS Medal, top honour of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has been awarded to Prof. Dingwell, Chair of Mineralogy and Petrology of the LMU Munich and a member of the Earth and Cosmic Sciences section of Academia Europaea.

Prof. Dingwell´s citation receives the honour in recognition of his lifelong achievements in solid-earth sciences. His citation reads:

“For inspirational leadership in magma physics and rheology via unique, innovative experimentation designed to inform on magmatic/volcanic processes. “

Harry H. Hess is considered one of the "founding fathers" of the unifying theory of plate tectonics. He is credited, amongst other things, with having discovered sea floor spreading.

Since 1984 the Hess Medal has been conferred 29 times in recognition of outstanding achievements in research on the constitution and evolution of the Earth and other planets. The American Geophysical Union is the world´s largest geoscientific organization with over 62,000 members from 144 countries and celebrated its centennial in 2019.

The Medal will be conferred in a virtual ceremony on 9 December in lieu of this year´s annual AGU meeting.

Academia Europaea congratulates Prof. Dingwell to this distinction!

About the Hess Medal#

The Harry H. Hess Medal is given annually to a senior scientist in recognition of outstanding achievements in research on the constitution and evolution of the Earth and other planets. Recipients of this award typically conduct research in the following disciplines: Earth and planetary surface processes, mineral rock physics, planetary sciences, study of the Earth’s deep interior, techtonophysics, volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology.

The Hess Medal is named in honor of Harry H. Hess, who made many contributions to geology, mineralogy, and geophysics. Hess served multiple terms as an AGU section president - for the Geodesy section (1950 - 1953) as well as the Tectonophysics section (1956 - 1959). He made major contributions to the study of the oceanic lithosphere, including the concept that convection cells in the mantle were the driving force for seafloor spreading.