example, Ross Stein, Bill Ellsworth,. Walter Mooney, and Thorne Lay have ... Jordan and Raymond Jeanloz regularly pro voke further excursions into the data ...
Eos, Vol. 76, N o . 10, March 7, 1995
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Vidale Receives Macelwane Medal PAGE 103 The James B. Macelwane Medal, which is given for significant contributions to the geo physical sciences by a young scientist of outstanding ability, was presented to John E. Vidale at the 1994 Fall Meeting Honors Cere mony on December 7,1994, in San Francisco. The award citation and Vidale's response are given here.
Citation "Scientific discovery most often comes from the creative exploitation of newly avail able data to address long-standing problems. John Vidale, who shares the 1994 Macelwane Medal, has excelled in this regard. His contri butions in seismological studies of Earth structure and earthquake sources have been an inspiration to geophysicists throughout the world. His numerous publications in the leading journals Nature and Science over the past 4 years already well exceeds the number of papers accepted by these two journals in a typical scientific career. John selects data like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked, and util izes it wisely. "John Vidale has contributed to geophysi cal studies of subducted lithospheric slabs, upper mantle discontinuities, core/mantle structure, and earthquake sources. He has also developed new and highly effective methodologies, such as the rapid calculation of travel times using finite-differences. "A particularly rich data source that John Vidale and his U.S. Geological Survey col league Harley Benz have exploited is the regional seismographic networks operated in the western United States and Canada that are primarily used to determine earthquake hypocenters. The 1500 stations in these net works record distant teleseismic earthquakes as well, and John has exploited this instru mentation as a huge antenna to probe the mantle. These data, being from short-period networks, contain relatively high frequen cies, thereby allowing high-resolution determination of the seismic properties of such targets as subducted slabs, mantle dis continuities, and the core/mantle boundary. This innovative research has brought interna tional attention and interest to the use of regional seismic arrays for studies of deep Earth structure. While coverage in the popu lar media is perhaps not an objective measure of long-term scientific impact, I note that many of these results have been summa rized in the New York Times and the Los
Angeles Times, as well as Time magazine, Sci ence News, and have been broadcast on National Public Radio, the BBC, and CNN Headline News. At a time when the rele vance and interest of the public in basic scientific research is much debated, it is heartening to see that these fundamental studies are widely reported in the popular media. "A list of accomplishments and a sum mary of publications is perhaps less interesting than a discussion of scientific strategy. It is easy for us to recognize the ba sic methodology used by John Vidale to achieve his scientific goals. First, he recog nizes the availability of a unique and detailed data source. He then determines if these data can be used to test competing sci entific hypotheses. If so, he assembles the available data and applies innovative proc essing techniques to optimize the information content. Usually, unexpected features are clearly evident in this new and rich display of data. Discussions with scien tists in related fields, for example, mineral physics, usually reveal a key prediction that can be confirmed or disproved by the newly processed data. All that remains is to then fax the resulting manuscript to Laura Garwin at Nature to assure rapid publication with as sured high visibility. "It is a great pleasure to participate in this occasion, when the American Geophysical Union recognizes a young scientist with an unusually inquisitive and original mind, great intellectual curiosity, and exceptional scientific productivity." —WalterMooney, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
Response "By long-standing tradition, tonight I ac knowledge the major influences in my career. The summary of 35 years in 5 minutes will require brutal selection. I will leave out most scientific details, which were just re viewed with great charity by Walter and are in plain view in the literature, to focus on more personal influences. "My mother Rosemary, a geologist, em ployed me as a sledge hammer and rock conveyor during adventures through wilder ness and inclement weather. These escapades instilled an appreciation of safe and sedentary studies, like math and physics, which I pursued through high school and most of college at Yale. "My uncle Marcello, who had taught physics at Princeton, heard of this affection toward phys ics and cured it. In somber tones, he painted a picture of the trauma of endless postdoctoral po sitions, followed by tiny participation in enormous projects. This advice, in combination
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with an introductory geology course by Brian Skinner featuring daily slides of geologists drinking Foster's lager on outcrops, induced me to forget my mother's lessons and add a geology major to my physics major. My un dergraduate advisor Emile Okal was another positive influence, despite his selection of colorful shirts, lecturing his one-student class with striking French panache. "Graduate school at the Caltech Seismol ogy Laboratory began ominously, as I noticed the many intimidating scholars w h o had already mastered the rigors of re search. Hiroo Kanamori cited papers from the 1920s to answer my deepest questions. Don Anderson, with a combination of pointed questions and puns, could effort lessly undermine my speculations. Dave Stevenson and Peter Goldreich could nondimensionalize a model in seconds. Riding hard and fast across the landscape were the "gang of three"; Thorne Lay, Terry Wallace, and Mario Vassiliou, marauding through a multitude of geophysical problems. I quickly specialized in numerical methods for seismology, where one could be the prince of a narrow domain. It is gratifying that some of the finite-difference and polari zation algorithms and computer codes that resulted still endure in the seismological community. "With my Ph.D. advisors Don Helmberger and Rob Clayton, research started to be re warding. Either one, within a few minutes, could provide a range of solutions to any problem ranging unpredictably from the ele gant to the absurd. Though some discussions, like the difference between a point source in two dimensions and a line source in three dimensions, went in circles, other conversations progressed through the subjects of earthquakes, earth structures, and the hazards of strong motion. W e wandered through subducting slabs, resonating basins,
Eos, Vol. 76, No. 10, March 7, 1995 and nuclear explosions, exploring the terrain of seismology. While I visited many remote backwaters, some intriguing results emerg ed. "Heidi Houston added balance, discour aging ill-posed scientific meandering and Saturday morning football and beer and en couraging basic writing skills and sound logic. I am still amazed that when Caltech paved over our house to erect a parking lot, she procured several years of free use in a rundown San Marino mansion, now not so rundown and housing the director of JPL. "During 4 years with the University of Cali fornia at Santa Cruz, I explored the geophysical landscape further. Despite Quentin Williams' frequent pleas to do some thing interesting for once, I developed novel methods and then looked for problems to which they applied. The sea air and redwoods
led me to b e c o m e unnaturally healthy, a condition that I have since o v e r c o m e with the advent of a lengthy commute and the distractions of my infant daughter Laura. "Bill Bakun and Al Lindh lured me to the U.S. Geological Survey 4 years a g o , giving me an office, a computer, and ac cess to the vast data reservoirs and dozens of geophysicists in Menlo Park. It was a g o o d time to turn back to seismic data and look at the Earth. With Harley Benz, w h o knows countless seismologists, computer systems, and data formats across North America, I have rummaged through the archives of the miscellaneous short-period regional networks in a vari ety of investigations. More than 1500 stations are currently running, and, despite our progress learning mantle structure and the physics of earthquakes,
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the scientific possibilities of these data still seem largely untapped. "This recitation must be incomplete. For example, Ross Stein, Bill Ellsworth, Walter Mooney, and Thorne Lay have pro vided the latest perspectives on a range of subjects. Hiroo Kanamori remains a uniquely valuable seismological authority and is patient and accessible as well. Tom Jordan and Raymond Jeanloz regularly pro voke further excursions into the data with new and tantalizing hypotheses. Tom Brocher, Greg Beroza, Elise Knittle, and Peter Shearer are compatriots that make work a pleasure. And Steve Grand provides a skepti cal but sympathetic sounding board for ideas. There are many more that I should thank, but my 5 minutes are up."—John E. Vidale, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
