Marcia K. McNutt awarded 1988 Macelwane Medal

Abstract

It is an honor for me, and a pleasure, to present to you Marcia McNutt as a Macelwane medalist for 1988. McNutt is a tectonophysicist, best known for her work on the thermal and mechanical properties of the lithosphere and the nature of isostatic compensation beneath the oceans and continents. Large topographic loads with horizontal scale lengths from a few tens to hundreds of kilometers are a rich source of information about the dynamical properties of Earth's outer layers. Although such features have been studied for more than a century, it has only been within the last decade, in large measure through the work of McNutt and her colleagues, that the quantitative modeling of loading phenomena has elucidated the physics of lithospheric deformation and the nature of lithospheric interactions with the convecting mantle. This Macelwane Medal recognizes her achievements in this important area of tectonophysics.