President Price, fellows, members, and guests: It is with great pleasure that I introduce the 2002 SEG Silver medalist—Richard Sillitoe. Richard, known as Dick to many of you, is a household name in the world of economic geology and mineral exploration. He is also an apparently ageless Brit who speaks fluent Spanish in a colloquial Chilean style. I emphasize the ageless attribute, because given his track record some may question why Dick is receiving a mid-career award. I can assure you, that with limitless energy, Dick is undoubtedly in the middle of his career and will continue to produce seminal work when most of us have retired! More importantly, this award is for excellence in original work in the geology of mineral deposits and clearly Dick’s contributions exemplify this description. After obtaining B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of London, Dick joined the Chilean survey (Instituto de Investigaciones Geologicas). His Ph.D. and the following three years working in Chile led to his long-term involvement in Andean geology, porphyry exploration, and perhaps less appreciated, his understanding of weathering—from landforms to supergene minerals. Arguably, this period culminated in one of the critical porphyry papers of that famous era, known colloquially as Dick’s Tops and Bottoms paper. This paper was the first of many idea papers or pot-boilers that he has produced—papers that synthesize observations into new concepts designed to excite and provoke. His time in Chile is the only period of his career when he …