Distinguished Career Award Winners

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Distinguished Career Award Winners: Paul Martin, 1999; Minze Stuiver, 2000

Minze Stuiver was nominated for the AMQUA Distinguished Career Award because of his more than three decades of isotope geochemistry, especially for his radiocarbon dating techniques. After training in the Netherlands, he took over the radiocarbon lab at Yale under the eyes of R.F. Flint, Ed Deevey, and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, an awesome set of onlookers for a young researcher. He built the new radiocarbon facility in Kline Geology Lab at Yale, then another new one in the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington. He has always been at the front of radiocarbon research, from his early work on the reciprocal relation between sunspot cycles and radiocarbon productivity to numerous later updates on calibrations of the radiocarbon time scale. He has been heavily involved in analyses of the ice cores from Greenland's summit, one of the most exciting current topics in Quaternary Studies.

Acceptance Reply by Minze Stuiver
The distinguished career award is very much appreciated and I thank all participants very much for the nomination and citation.
    A career is often a person's lifework. Many years go by producing a career which, in my case, lasted about half a century. Data accumulation and modeling has changed dramatically during those years. For instance, there were in 1958 only a dozen 14C measurements showing atmospheric 14C variability during the past few hundred years. We now have precision tree-ring measurements spanning more than 11,000 years. Oxygen isotope ratio measurements of glacial ice follow a similar pattern. Whereas Dansgaard in 1961 had to work with a few dozen determinations there are now instances where more than ten thousand measurements are available for a single core.
    Present-day modeling was nearly impossible during the 1950's, given the absence of computers. Once in a while, however, one could get results. In 1959 I was interested in the atmospheric 14C variations and cosmic ray production rate changes tied to the sunspot cycle. The approximate size, and exchange rates between, the global carbon reservoirs were known from Craig's work and could be converted into an electric analogue where the reservoirs were represented by condensers and exchange rates (and radiocarbon decay) by resistors. A metal sheet, with the sunspot information of the last 400 years carved on its edge was mounted on the axis of a motor and a light beam striking along the edge of the rotating sheet was partly intercepted. The light intensity variations were converted by a photomultiplier into electrical current variations, and fed into the model. The current variations provided an "electrical" sunspot curve, and the modified responses of the electric analogue were observed with an oscilloscope. All in all a far cry from present day computer modeling but, fortunately, the results were equally valid.
    There also have been major changes in career characteristics over the last 50 years. Starting an academic career is more difficult - the competition is more intense and specific single discipline knowledge is usually required. My own career, with academic appointments in Geological Sciences, Zoology and Quaternary Sciences, certainly does not fit present day requirements. After all, my Masters degree was in Nuclear Physics and my Ph.D. thesis in Biophysics (in 1958 at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands).
    Student participation is, of course, crucial to most Quaternary investigations and special thanks are due to Drs Tom Braziunas, Bob Burk, Tracy Furitani, Ted McConnaughey, Paula Reimer and Eric Steig. It was a privilege to work with them on a variety of topics such as carbon reservoir modeling and 14C age calibration, ESR dating, and oxygen isotope ratio determinations in tree-rings, corals and ice cores. Many results can be found on our web site at http://depts.washington.edu/qil/
    Anneke, my wife, also has been a strong supporter over those many years and her dedication is greatly appreciated. We both thank you very much for your interest in an enterprise that lasted many radiocarbon years.

Paul Martin was nominated for the AMQUA Distinguished Career Award because of his pioneering work in Quaternary paleoenvironments and extinction. Paul completed his PhD at the University of Michigan where he studied the ecology of amphibians and reptiles in the cloud forests. He was a postdoc with Ed Deevey at Yale where he learned palynology and a great deal about Quaternary biogeography. Paul took a position at the University of Arizona where he encouraged his students to study packrat middens which revolutionized the understanding of vegetational history of the southwestern United States. Paul is an eclectic scholar and he advises students from a wide variety of disciplines. However, Paul is best known for his "overkill" and Blitzkreig models of Pleistocene extinction. These models have stimulated an enormous amount of research on this topic, including two large volumes that Paul has coedited. Most importantly his ideas on extinction have also contributed significantly to a broad spectrum of research on Quaternary paleoecology.
Dr. Martin's acceptance reply will be published in the winter edition of the Times

Roslyn Case Wins 2000 AMQUA Gaudreau Award for Excellence in Quaternary Studies
The Denise Gaudreau Award for Excellence in Quaternary Studies commemorates Quaternary paleontologist Denise Gaudreau (1952-1992). This biennial award of $500 was established to support the early career development of women scientists in Quaternary studies. The award recognizes scientific accomplishments, promise, and original thinking. The 2000 award winner is Roslyn Anne Case. Roslyn is a doctoral candidate in the Geography Department at UCLA and expects to complete her degree in the summer 2000. She has a B.Sc. in Geography from the University of Toronto (1992) and a M.Sc. in Geography from McMaster University (1994). Glen MacDonald has served as her advisor for her master's and doctoral theses. Her research focuses on paleoclimatology, primarily based on dendrochronology and dendroclimatology. She has participated in research in Canada and the Los Angeles area. She is currently developing a network of tree ring chronologies across the Canadian prairies to derive information on the spatial and temporal characteristics of drought on the northern Plains. She has received numerous academic awards and has published collaborative research in juried journals.