Logan Medal

Logan Medal

The highest award of the Geological Association of Canada is presented to an individual for sustained distinguished achievement in Canadian earth science.

2025 Logan Medallist

Dr. Galen Halverson (McGill University)

 

Awarded for his sustained efforts and outstanding contributions as a stratigrapher, sedimentologist, and isotope geochemist to interrogate the rock record and infer Earth’s geographic, tectonic, and environmental evolution during the Proterozoic Eon.

Professor Galen Halverson is chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University, where he holds the James McGill Professorship and is the T.H. Clark Chair of Sedimentology and Petroleum Geology. Dr. Halverson is among the world’s foremost experts on the Proterozoic Eon, which encompassed the assembly and disintegration of the supercontinents Nuna and Rodinia, the Great Oxidation Event, the origin and early diversification of eukaryotic organisms, and multiple global glaciations. Dr. Halverson’s early research, based on extensive fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic, Norway and Namibia, focused on understanding Cryogenian glaciations, including the formulation and testing of the Neoproterozoic snowball Earth hypothesis. He subsequently developed a chronological framework for the Neoproterozoic Era (1000–539 million years ago), which was used to understand the secular evolution of the carbon, strontium, and sulfur isotope compositions of seawater during this time. With his collaborators and students, he has further developed and applied multiple different isotope systems to the Proterozoic, including nitrogen, iron, zinc, uranium, barium, and neodymium. He has worked extensively on the origin and stratigraphic records of sedimentary basins in northern Canada and across the globe over the past two decades, and this work has yielded new fossils, radiometric ages, and geochemical records that have collectively provided great insight into our understanding of the tectonic, biological, and biogeochemical change through the Proterozoic Eon. He has contributed to calibrating the Proterozoic geologic time scale through a combination of geochronology, astrochronology, and Bayesian age modelling techniques.

The deadline for National Medal nomination forms is January 5th, 2025

 

Previous Award Winners

2024       Dr. Sandra Barr

2023       Sandra L. Kamo

2022       Brendan Murphy

2021       Kurt Konhauser

2020       Margot McMechan

2019       Cees van Staal

2018       Barbara Sherwood Lollar

2017       Roy Hyndman

2016       Brian Jones

2015       Richard Grieve

2014       Andrew Miall

2013       George Pemberton

2012       Robert Kerrich

2011       Anthony E. Williams-Jones

2010       Christopher Barnes

2009       Noel James

2008       James M. Franklin

2007       John Clague

2006       Claude Hillaire-Marcel

2005       Ron M. Clowes

2004       Stewart Blusson

2003       Fred Longstaffe

2002       James Monger

2001       S.E. Calvert

2000       H. Gabrielse

1999       R. G. Walker

1998       D.F. Sangster

1997       E. W. Mountjoy

1996       F. C. Hawthorne

1995       J. Veizer

1994       A. J. Naldrett

1993       P. Cerny

1992       P. F. Hoffman

1991       J. R. Mackay

1990       R. L. Armstrong

1989       T. E. Krogh

1988       H. Williams

1987       D. J. Mclaren

1986       M. J. Keen

1985       R. A. Price

1984       D. W. Strangway

1983       J. O. Wheeler

1982       C. R. Stelck

1981       W. S. Fyfe

1980       G. V. Middleton

1979       R. Thorsteinsson

1978       A. Remanis

1977       A. R. Barringer

1976       R. J. W. Douglas

1975       E. Irving

1974       Y. O. Fortier

1973       C. H. Stockwell

1972       R. F. Leggett

1971       T. H. Clark

1970       D. R. Derry

1969       J. M. Harrison

1968       J. T. Wilson

1967       J. E. Gill

1966       H. C. Gunning

1965       W. A. Bell

1964       H. E. Hawley