2023 – Tetsuo IRIFUNE

Tetsuo IRIFUNE is 2023 IMA medalist.

Tetsuo Irifune is a Prof. of Geodynamics Research Center, Ehime University (Japan).

Pioneer in the development of new methods for the generation of ultrahigh pressures and temperatures in large volume press, Prof. Tetsuo Irifune has reached the highest level of scientific excellence and eminence within the international mineral physics community by setting new standards in the performance of multi-anvil high-pressure experiments with applications to deep Earthprocesses, and to materials science, including the first synthesis of ultra-hard nano-polycrystalline diamond and transparent nano-ceramics. Thanks to his ability to innovate and develop new techniques, he expanded the scope of mineralogy to entirely new scientific frontiers and extended the boundaries of knowledge. His work has consistently been at the cutting edge of research in mineral physics over a wide range of fields, from hydrous and anhydrous phase relations through novel diamond and ceramics synthesis to techniques of in situ analysis with impact across mantle geochemistry, seismology and geodynamics.

You can visit the website here, a have a look at his impressive publications list here.

2008 – Charles PREWITT

2008 – Charles PREWITT

Charles Prewitt was the inaugural recipient of the IMA Medal for Excellence, in recognition of his research eminence in developing a wide variety of new fields in crystal chemistry, material sciences and mineral physics. He was one of the pioneers in the use of the single-crystal diffractometer for determining the structures of minerals, creating computer programs to handle diffraction data. With Robert D. Shannon he compiled the tables of the effective ionic radii of elements that became the foundation of modern crystal chemistry of minerals. He also led the development of synchrotron radiation for solving problems in mineral physics, a field that he himself established by convening (with 2021 IMA medalist Robert Hazen) the first mineral physics conference held in October 1977 and later led as the director of the Geophysical Laboratory. 

Wikipedia page

2009 – Frank C. Hawthorne

2009 – Frank C. Hawthorne

Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Manitoba, Canada

Frank Hawthorne recognized and refined systematic concepts of chemical bonding at the atomic level which have immensely improved our general understanding of mineral crystal chemistry and the factors that affect the crystallographic architecture and chemical compositions of minerals. The results are seminal and wide-ranging contributions to mineral groups as varied as the borates, sulfates, phosphates, alumino-fluorides, vanadates and beryllates on one hand, and common major rock-forming silicates on the other. No student of the geosciences will leave university untouched by some aspect of Frank Hawthorne’s crystal-chemical or spectroscopic contributions to amphibole, staurolite or tourmaline. In addition, Frank Hawthorne has been involved in the discovery of 48 new mineral species, 14 of which have involved common rock-forming mineral groups.

Wikipedia page

2011 – David H. Green

2011 – David H. Green

Professor, Centre for Ore Deposit and Exploration Studies, School of Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. Now Honory Associate and Emeritus Professor.

David H. Green has been adept at selecting significant petrological observations or hypotheses and devising experimental strategies to investigate them and became one of the most influential mantle petrologists. His early work with C. E. Tilley led to the creation of the “pyrolite” model, a prediction of the petrological character of the upper mantle. He has since studied a wide range of topics, including mineral assemblages of peridotites and basalts at high pressures, the experimental calibration of mineral geothermometers and geobarometers, the reasons for compositional variability of basaltic magmas including the roles of carbon and hydrogen, the genesis of carbonatite magmas, the identification of carbonatite metasomatism in the Earth’s lithosphere, the origins of and relationships among lunar basalts, and the nature of the lunar interior.

University web site
David Green’s IMA Medal Lecture paper

2013 – Nikolay V. Sobolev

2013 – Nikolay V. Sobolev

Professor at the V. S. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, Russia. 

Academician Nick Sobolev is a distinguished scientist whose work on the petrology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of high-pressure (HP) and ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) crustal and mantle rocks, kimberlites, as well as their xenoliths and diamonds, has had a profound influence on many disciplines in the Earth sciences. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of the morphology and composition of mineral inclusions in diamonds, with a focus on Siberian and Uralian samples. His work on Cr-rich silicate inclusions led to the classification of mantle peridotites into lherzolites, wehrlites, harzburgites, and dunites. This provided the foundation for the current use of mineral compositions in diamond exploration and the estimation of diamond grades. Through his work on continental eclogites in Kazakhstan he helped confirm the widespread distribution of ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism.

2015 – Rod C. Ewing

2015 – Rod C. Ewing

Rodney C. Ewing is the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security in the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. 

No scientist has made a greater contribution to the development of mineralogical approaches to the safe disposal of high-level nuclear waste and none have been more influential in developing the theoretical and experimental methods for studying the interactions between ionizing radiation and prospective storage materials. Rodney C. Ewing has worked on the long-term stability of nuclear waste forms, actinide mineralogy, crystal chemistry and geochemistry, the mobility of radionuclides in the geological environment with applications to risk analysis of geologic repositories, and the development of policies for the protection of human health and the environment. His eminence in the field of nuclear materials led to his appointment by President Obama to head the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the first mineralogist ever to head this Board. He is the Founding Editor of Elements magazine. 

Wikipedia page

University web site

2017 – Emil MAKOVICKY

2017 – Emil MAKOVICKY

Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Geoscience and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen

Emil Makovicky is an outstanding crystallographer who has devoted much of his long and distinguished scientific career to bringing system and clarity to the world of sulfide minerals, particularly the rare sulfosalts. Sulfides are the major ores for many of the metals we use in everyday life, but their crystal chemistry is quite different from the more common silicates due to the polarizable nature of the S anion. Makovicky, through his extensive study of these minerals, has shown that their structures form related homologous series, which can be in turn grouped into larger structural families. Using his modular approach to classification, he has solved approximately 90 crystal structures and identified over 20 new minerals.

University website

2018 – Gordon Brown

2018 – Gordon E. Brown, Jr

Dorrell William Kirby Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences and Professor Emeritus of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University.

Gordon Brown has made major contributions to the development of synchrotron radiation-based spectroscopic, scattering, and imaging methods to mineralogical and their application to geochemical problems. He has carried out many pioneering XAS studies of the local structural environments of cations in aluminosilicate minerals, silicate glasses and melts, aqueous solutions, and sorbed at mineral-aqueous solution interfaces, and the first in-situ XPS studies of the reaction of water with mineral surfaces. He has determined the molecular-level speciation of contaminants in mining environments and in soils at nuclear waste sites and the structure and properties of natural and engineered nanoparticles and their transformations in different environments. He has also examined the sequestration of carbon dioxide via mineral carbonation and the chemical reactions of hydraulic fracturing fluids with minerals and natural organic matter in unconventional oil- and gas-containing shales in an effort to improve the efficiency of hydrocarbon recovery and reduce its environmental impact. 

University website

2019 – Eiji Ohtani

2019 – Eiji Ohtani

Emeritus Professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Materials Science, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Sendai.

Eiji Ohtani was the first person to perform melting experiments on mantle minerals and rocks at pressures equivalent to those of the uppermost lower mantle by developing multi-anvil technology in late 1970s. He also invented techniques to measure density changes in molten rocks under very high pressures, thereby constraining the density contrasts between magmas and residual minerals in the deep mantle, which led to the concept of the deep magma ocean in the early Earth. He pioneered determinations of the stability of hydrous minerals in the mantle and subducting slabs, and the solubility of hydrogen in nominally anhydrous minerals. 

He also determined the phase and melting relations of the iron with light elements and metal-silicate partitioning under the pressure and temperature conditions of the Earth’s core to show that both O and Si can be candidates for the light elements in the outer core.

Read the article in Elements

University website

2020 – Georges Calas

2020 – Georges Calas

Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University Pierre & Marie Curie-Paris VI (now Sorbonne Université) and a senior member of the University Institute of France.

George Calas has been a pioneer in the use of solid-state spectroscopy to understand the relationships between the properties of minerals and glasses and their structure at the atomic scale. His extensive work on glasses, and the determination of the unusual coordination of some elements, has served as the basis to understand structure-property relationships in glasses. His pioneering work on the role of element speciation in determining the concentration of transition elements and contaminants in the surficial environment is of critical importance to our understanding of the dispersal of toxic ions at the surface of the Earth, and to the development of remediation technologies. 

Read the articles in Elements

Wikipedia page