2015 Service Award for Ralph Harvey

Abstract

It is a great pleasure to present Ralph P. Harvey, Principal Investigator (PI) for the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program from 1992 till present, as the recipient of the Meteoritical Society's Service Award for 2015. Ralph became the PI for the ANSMET program in 1992 when ANSMET founder Bill Cassidy passed the torch. Ralph has subsequently organized and led 24 ANSMET seasons resulting in the collection of ~16,000 meteorites that are now part of the U.S. Antarctic meteorite collection (Table 1). These seasons included ~150 volunteer field team members including many years with two teams—a main team and a reconnaissance (recon) team. During this period, Ralph experienced the 1996 announcement of possible evidence for life recorded in Martian meteorite Allan Hills (ALH) 84001; recovery of beautiful specimens from the Queen Alexandra (QUE), Meteorite Hills (MET), Miller Range (MIL), Dominion Range (DOM), LaPaz Icefield (LAP); and finished recovery efforts at Elephant Moraine (EET). Samples recovered in these areas include some key lunar and Martian meteorites, primitive and rare chondrites, and many unique achondrites from differentiated asteroids. Ralph also helped to establish two field teams for multiple collection years (main team and recon team) that required support of a second science leader—Nancy Chabot, Mike Rampey, and Jim Karner have filled those roles, working with Ralph and longtime ANSMET mountaineer John Schutt to take as many as 12 people per season into the field to recover meteorites. Ralph's distinction in his role of PI for ANSMET is truly due to his wealth of special talents and qualities that, when combined with his training from Bill, have led to an amazing collection of meteorite samples available to the worldwide research community. First under his direction, the goals of ANSMET have been well aligned with those of the Meteoritical Society: the substantial participation of international scientists (from at least 16 countries including the United States, UK, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, China, Portugal, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa), >40 female scientists, and nonscientists including several teachers and writers. Some ANSMET participants have stated that Ralph's invitation to participate in ANSMET teams has been influential and led them to carry out their own research in the field. Second, leading expeditions of this nature for over two decades has led to great personal sacrifice both with regard to family and research. Ralph has missed many holiday seasons with his wife and three children because the field expeditions typically start before Thanksgiving and end in mid to late January. Moreover, Ralph's stimulating research efforts—including statistics of Antarctic and non-Antarctic falls, water on Mars, cosmic spherules and dust, micrometeorites, Stardust particles, Martian soil weathering, and terrestrial analogs (Ferrar dolerite)—have no doubt been stunted by his dedication to managing and coordinating the annual ANSMET expeditions. These sacrifices would be insurmountable by many in our field yet Ralph has managed them well. Third, Ralph has a knack for managing people and good morale amongst those people. His energy, enthusiasm, sense of humor, patience, leadership, and even-tempered personality—all despite the long, difficult, and cold field seasons—as well as his ability to select team members to fit into this challenging environment, have all contributed to many successful seasons without incident. Finally, Ralph has made this an open adventure embracing the community with an informational webpage, field team blogs in the last decade or so, and the annual ANSMET night in mid-March during LPSC week. The numerous nomination letters for Ralph were full of personal stories of how ANSMET and Ralph had heavily influenced individuals in our field. Such is certainly true of this writer as well, having had the pleasure of spending time in the field with Ralph over 15 years ago! Please join me in congratulating Ralph for his outstanding efforts in collecting thousands of scienti-fically precious meteorites, influencing a great diversity of people who are now meteorite enthusiasts, and for his unique contributions to a hugely successful program that continues to grow and flourish. It is hard to imagine what the ANSMET program would be like without Ralph's influence! Mr. President, members of the society, distinguished guests, I am pleased to present our friend and colleague, Dr. Ralph P. Harvey for the 2015 Meteoritical Society Service Award.