Richard Gordon, W.M. Keck Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences is elected AAAS fellow

– NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Richard Gordon is honored by scientific society

Rice geophysicist Richard Gordon

Richard Gordon

AAAS fellows are elected by their peers, and Gordon and Miranda are among 443 new fellows announced this week by the 120,000-member association. Fellows are selected for scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

Gordon, the W.M. Keck Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, was selected “for distinguished contributions to the fields of tectonic geophysics and geodesy through forefront research on diffuse oceanic plate boundaries and true polar wander.”

Gordon joined Rice in 1995 and studies the movement and deformation of tectonic plates, the patterns those movements leave in the paleogeographic record and the geophysical consequences of tectonic motions and deformation, including earthquakes, the building of mountain ranges and the evolution of ocean basins. He has discovered and investigated a number of diffuse boundaries that separate distinct tectonic plates in the oceans, and his investigations of “true” polar wander, instances when Earth shifted relative to its spin axis, have helped explain puzzling features of the paleomagnetic record. Gordon’s many honors include the American Geophysical Union’s Macelwane Medal in 1989 and the Geological Society of America’s Day Medal in 2002.

The 2019 AAAS Fellows will be acknowledged in the Nov. 29 issue of Science and honored at a Feb. 15 ceremony at the 2020 AAAS annual meeting in Seattle.

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