International Marine Minerals Society MOORE MEDAL 2014 CITATION The International Marine Minerals Society (IMMS) presents David Cronan, with The Moore Medal*, which is given in the name of Professor J. Robert (Robby) Moore for distinction in the development of marine minerals. Professor Moore conducted marine minerals research at Cardiff University in Wales, Great Britain and the Universities of Harvard, Wisconsin, Alaska, and Texas in the United States. He was committed to the intelligent integration of government, industry, and academia to address the development of marine minerals. Robby founded the Underwater Mining Institute and IMMS, and he committed his research and many other considerable personal efforts to the multidisciplinary development of marine minerals. The Moore Medal is not awarded on any regular basis, but is reserved for those rare occasions when the career of an eminent figure in marine mining and minerals activities warrants such an honor. *Robert W. Cooke earns a living designing and making monumental sculptures for many customers, mostly in the Northwest. Before becoming a full time artist, Bob was the Exploration Manager for the International Nickel deep seabed mining consortium. He attended many UMIs and became a good friend of the Institute and many of its participants. He designed and made the Moore medal when IMMS decided to initiate the award.
Transcript
International Marine Minerals Society
MOORE MEDAL 2014 CITATION
The International Marine Minerals Society (IMMS) presents David Cronan, with The Moore Medal*, which is given in the name of Professor J. Robert (Robby) Moore for distinction in the development of marine minerals. Professor Moore conducted marine minerals research at Cardiff University in Wales, Great Britain and the Universities of Harvard, Wisconsin, Alaska, and Texas in the United States. He was committed to the intelligent integration of government, industry, and academia to address the development of marine minerals.
Robby founded the Underwater Mining Institute and IMMS, and he committed his research and many other considerable personal efforts to the multidisciplinary development of marine minerals. The Moore Medal is not awarded on any regular basis, but is reserved for those rare occasions when the career of an eminent figure in marine mining and minerals activities warrants such an honor.
*Robert W. Cooke earns a living designing and making monumental sculptures for many customers, mostly in the Northwest. Before becoming a full time artist, Bob was the Exploration Manager for the International Nickel deep seabed mining consortium. He attended many UMIs and became a good friend of the Institute and many of its participants. He designed and made the Moore medal when IMMS decided to initiate the award.
International Marine Minerals Society
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David Spencer Cronan is an internationally recognized authority on marine minerals in general and on manganese nodules and hydrothermal sediments in particular.
He holds a B.Sc. from Durham University, a post-graduate Diploma in Geochemistry from Oxford University (Keble College), a Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from Imperial College (London, 1967), which focused on the geochemistry of manganese nodules and associated pelagic deposits from the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and a D.Sc. from Durham University (1986).
After receiving his Ph.D., he began his professional career at the British Geological Survey, moving after two years to the University of Ottawa (Canada), where he served four years, as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Sedimentary Geochemistry. In 1973 he returned to Imperial College as Professor of Marine Geochemistry, initially to direct the applied marine geochemistry division of the extant Department of Geology. He has pursued his eminent career based at Imperial College ever since, where at the time of writing (July 2014) he is Emeritus Professor of Marine Geochemistry in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering.
His extensive and varied contributions to marine minerals scholarship in particular, and to the global community on marine minerals issues in general, include: the publication of more than 150 papers on marine geochemistry, seafloor mineral deposits and sediments, submarine volcanic activity and related topics, including marine minerals development and policy aspects; four books - two as author: the pioneering Underwater Minerals (also translated into Russian and Chinese) and Marine Minerals in Exclusive Economic Zones, and two as editor: Sedimentation and Mineral Deposits in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean and Handbook of Marine Minerals Deposits); service on the editorial board of key international journals (Marine Mining, Marine Geology, Geochimica and Cosmochimica Acta, Marine Georesources and Geotechnology); participating in and/or leading over 20 marine minerals research cruises in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as in the Mediterranean and Red Seas; supervising 27 Ph.D. students; advising international and regional governmental organizations (e.g., CCOP/SOPAC, the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations Development
Program), and national governments (e.g., the United Kingdom and the Cook Islands) on deep sea marine minerals resources; serving on and chairing learned society committees in his areas of expertise (e.g., the Ocean Resources Committee of the Society for Underwater Technology); serving as President of the International Marine Minerals Society (IMMS), as well as a member of the IMMS Board of Directors, and as President of the Commission on Manganese of the International Association on the Genesis of Ore Deposits (IAGOD); giving keynote addresses at major international scientific meetings; and participating in television and radio broadcasts.
Awards for his work include: the Pettersson Medal by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in recognition of his scholarly contributions in deep sea sedimentation, the Lyell Fund Award of the Geological Society, and the Honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of the Aegean, Greece.
His work on manganese nodules and hydrothermal sediments includes a number of pioneering contributions to our discipline, of which a brief selection follows.
His Ph.D. research on manganese nodules helped define the limits of potential ore-grade deposits in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. He was the first to describe the regional geochemistry of Atlantic nodules. His studies on Central Pacific manganese nodules established the role of the CCD in controlling their trace element variability and demonstrated post-depositional diagenetic influence on their interior. His participation in research on geochemical exploration techniques for marine mineral deposits led to the development of a deductive technique applied to manganese nodules, based on a thorough understanding of the effects of the depositional environment on the deposit grade, thereby improving the ability to predict where the highest deposit grade could occur. His work on hydrothermal sediments during Legs 16 and 24 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project not only improved our knowledge of the distribution and origin of hydrothermal sediments on mid-ocean ridges, but also, in conjunction with his concurrent studies on Red Sea hydrothermal sediments, demonstrated that the latter were a special type of the former. He was among the first to identify volcanically active arcs and marginal basins of the SW Pacific as potential hosts of submarine hydrothermal minerals. His research on surface varieties of these deposits there, and on buried hydrothermal sediments collected in the Lau Basin during ODP Leg 135, substantially enhanced our understanding of the hydrothermal history of that basin. Through his study of Aegean Sea hydrothermal activity, where he conducted expeditions in the Hellenic Volcanic Arc to, e.g., Santorini, Milos, Kos, and Yali-Nisyros, he greatly extended our knowledge on geochemical, sedimentological and metallogenic processes in this region, including the first recognition that the two main hydrothermal systems off Santorini are geochemically distinct from each other.
As one of David’s Ph.D. students, a colleague in the marine minerals world, and a fellow former IMMS Board member, I would like to express my own personal appreciation and gratitude to David for his continued and invaluable advice, support and encouragement.
On behalf of the marine minerals community represented by IMMS, this citation is offered as a contribution to David’s richly deserved recognition by our Society of his splendid work in the marine minerals field by our Society’s award to David of its highest accolade, the Moore Medal.
Philomene Verlaan IMMS Member September 22, 2014
Charles L. Morgan, UMI Technical Chair James R. Hein, IMMS President
