The 2011 recipient of the Brady Medal: Dr John A. Barron

Abstract

![][1] Dr John Barron is an internationally renowned expert in marine diatom taxonomy, biostratigraphy, palaeoceanography and palaeoclimatology. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1969 with a BS Geology degree and completed his doctoral research in Geology at UCLA, as a student of Helen N. Tappan, in 1974. John took up a position as a research geologist/micropalaeontologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California in 1974 where he remains today as a Supervisory Research Geologist within the Volcano Science Center. Notably, he is the Survey’s internationally recognized expert on the climate of the past 15 000 years in the North Pacific area and on the climatic and glacial history of Antarctica during the past 65 million years. In 1984, John was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and, in 1986, he was presented the Charles Schuchert Award by the Paleontological Society for excellence and promise in palaeontology. In 1994 he was awarded a US Department of Interior Meritorious Service Award by the USGS and, in 2005, was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. John is the leading world authority on Cenozoic marine diatom biostratigraphy and evolution, having established and revised many biostratigraphic zonations during his 40+ year career, and described numerous new diatom species, such as Actinocyclus fryxellae , Thalassiosira gersondei and T. mahoodii (Baldauf & Barron, 1991). He has repeatedly demonstrated the value of marine diatoms for solving a range of important geological problems for the entire diatom fossil record (Cretaceous to Holocene), particularly in areas such as the Southern Ocean where other microfossil groups are rare. A creative thinker, from the time of his first publication on Neogene ocean palaeotemperatures (Barron, 1973) John was, in many respects, a leader in the field … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif