Denton, Andrews, Porter Glacial Geology Award

Award history

The Denton, Andrews, Porter Glacial Geology Award was established in 2020 in honor of the initial primary donor’s academic advisors: George H. Denton, John T. Andrews, and Stephen C. Porter.

Support is provided for graduate or undergraduate research in the areas of glacial geology, including glaciology, glacial geomorphology, glacial chronology, or a related field, such as paleoclimatology or climate change.

George H. Denton

George H. Denton (born 1939 in Medford, Massachusetts, USA) is Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences and Quaternary Studies at the University of Maine in Orono. He earned his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1965 for his research in the St. Elias Range and Wrangle Mountains and was the first scientist from the University of Maine elected to the National Academy of Sciences. His primary interest is the geological history of large ice sheets and smaller mountain glaciers, and in particular the role of these ice sheets in Quaternary and late-Tertiary ice ages. He also focuses on the abrupt ocean-atmosphere reorganizations in glacial cycles. He was lead glacial geologist on the NSF-funded CLIMAP project (1970s) that involved reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets during the Last Ice Age. Other projects deal with the alpine glacier history of the Chilean Andes (primarily 1990s) and the Southern Alps of New Zealand (primarily 2000’s to present).

Denton has been widely acclaimed for his research in the glacial geology of Antarctica (primarily 1970s and 1980s) where the Denton Glacier and Denton Hills were named in his honor. Denton's research has inspired several generations of students, many of whom have followed prestigious career paths in Earth Sciences.

Honors

• 1990: Recipient of the Vega Medal (Gold) from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography
• 1996: Elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• 2002: Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
• 2015: Recipient of Geological Society of America, Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division Distinguished Career Award

John T. Andrews

John Thomas Andrews (born 1937 in Millom, United Kingdom) is Professor Emeritus of Geological, Atmospheric, and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) in Boulder. He was awarded his BA in geosciences from the University of Nottingham in England (1959), his MS in geology from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (1961), a PhD from Nottingham (1965), and a DSc from Nottingham (1978).

Andrews in his early career focused on the history of the Barnes Ice Cap on northern Baffin Island and the origin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. His initial research in Quaternary glacial stratigraphy on Baffin Island gradually transitioned to mapping glaciomarine deposits in Arctic coastal areas, and then marine sediments collected in dozens of deep-sea sediment cores from shipboard expeditions across the North Atlantic Ocean. The most notable discovery from this marine work was the recognition of detrital carbonate layers in marine sediment cores from the eastern Canadian Arctic and their correlation with Heinrich events and evidence for abrupt climate change.

Honors:

• 1973: Recipient of the Geological Society of America Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division's Kirk Bryan Award for his book “A geomorphological study of post-glacial uplift with particular reference to Arctic Canada”
• 2006: Named Fellow of the American Geophysical Union
• 2007: Geological Society of America, Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division Distinguished Career Award
• 2016: Recipient of Geological Society of America’s Penrose Medal for his contribution to advancing the understanding of how partial collapses of the Laurentide Ice Sheet are reflected in Heinrich events and have contributed to abrupt climate change during the Quaternary

Stephen C. Porter

Stephen Cummings Porter (born 1934, died 2015) was an American glacial geologist who taught in the department of Geological Sciences (now called the department of Earth and Space Sciences) and directed the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was chief editor of the journal Quaternary Research from 1976 until his retirement in 2001.

Porter was well known for his pioneering work in glacial geology, particularly in China, which he visited for fieldwork and conferences more than 30 times over the course of his career. He also did field work in many current formerly glaciated areas around the world, including Alaska's Brooks Range (for his PhD earned at Yale in 1962), the Italian Alps, Chilean Andes, New Zealand Alps, Himalaya, the Hindu Kush, and Hawaii's Big Island. Among his important contributions was the elucidation of the climate record contained in the Loess Plateau sediments of China, and the recognition of the role of volcanism in explaining the cold temperatures of the Little Ice Age.

Honors:

• 2004: Geological Society of America Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division’s Kirk Bryan Award for his article “Snowline depression in the tropics during the Last Glaciation”
• 2004: Received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Quaternary Association, where he served as president from 1992 to 1994
• 2005: Recipient of the Geological Society of America Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division’s Distinguished Career Award
• 2007: Won an Einstein Professorship Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences
• 2011: Received the Liu Tungsheng Career Medal from the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), where he served as president from 1995 to 1999

How to Apply for the DAP Glacial Geology Award

Applications are done via the student research grant program run by GSA. Any research grant application that has “Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology” selected as the General Field of Research Project will be automatically eligible for consideration for our awards.  PLEASE NOTE that a single application can be simultaneously considered for multiple awards.

THE APPLICATION PROCEDURES ARE    http://www.geosociety.org/gradgrants

Application deadline for all student awards is the same as the GSA Graduate Student Research Grant deadline. 

Recipients of the DAP Glacial Geology Award

2020s

2025 Nora Vaughan, Lehigh University. Pleistocene valley-bottom incision in the Eastern Piedmont, USA.

2024 Yolam Terleth, University of Idaho. SteepIce: Untangling the mechanics of glaciers in steep terrain using environmental cryo-seismology.

2023 Kurt Lindberg, University of Buffalo. Reconstructing vegetation and biomass changes around a southern Baffin Island lake in response to Holocene shrub colonization. 

2022 Victoria Halvorson, Dartmouth College. Constraining the timing of deglacial warming in Costa Rica.

2021 (two awards given)

• Tristan Bench, PhD, Univ. of Washington. Applications of an in-situ optical surface exposure dating technique on glacial erratic quartzites from the Foothills Erratics Train.
• Rachel Clark, PhD, University of Houston. Reconstructing Holocene changes of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, using detailed facies analyses of marine sediment cores. 

2020 Gryphen Goss, University of Calgary, for the proposal Fluvial response to climate change-induced stream capture, Yukon, Canada