Leonard Medal for 2021
Dr. Katharina Lodders (Washington University St. Louis, USA) has been selected for the 2021 Leonard Medal by the Meteoritical Society for her work on the condensation of presolar grains in stellar atmospheres and her compilation of the Solar System Abundances of the Elements and the condensation temperatures of the elements. More…
Nadine G. Barlow (1958-2020)
Over 18 years at Northern Arizona University, Nadine ascended the academic ranks, becoming Department Chair of Astronomy and Planetary Science. She received numerous awards for teaching excellence. Doubling the size of the Department, she grew its curriculum into a Ph.D.-granting program. More…
Richard "Dick" Pugh (1940-2020)
Our colleague, friend, and long time member of the Society, Richard (Dick) Pugh passed away yesterday (June 15) from complications associated with liver failure. His passing was peaceful and at home. More…
MetSoc statement on discrimination
We have been watching with the rest of the world the unfolding of recent events in the United States and the resulting turmoil. This brings home to us yet again that we have a ways to go before we achieve the just and equitable world that we all aspire to. If unacknowledged and unchecked, discrimination and injustice can enter any organization or community – and can destroy the very foundations upon which we are building our future. More…
William A. Cassidy (1928-2020)
William A. (Bill) Cassidy, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science of the University of Pittsburgh, passed away quietly in his home in Monroeville, PA on March 25, 2020, at the age of 92. Bill leaves behind a deep legacy of contributions to the fields of impact crater studies and meteoritics. More…
Pellas-Ryder Award for 2020 to Sabina D. Raducan
Sabina D. Raducan, currently a PhD student in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College, London, is awarded the 2020 Pellas-Ryder Award for her paper titled “The role of asteroid strength, porosity and internal friction in impact momentum transfer” published in Icarus in 2019. More…
Bruce F. Bohor (1932-2019)
Bruce Forbes Bohor, the 2011 Barringer Medalist of the Meteoritical Society (Glass, 2011), passed away at his home in Green Valley, Arizona, on November 17, 2019. Bruce is best known in our community for his discovery of shocked quartz in layers marking the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T, now called the Cretaceous-Paleogene, K-Pg) boundary in the central United States in the early 1980s, following the famous paper by Alvarez and co-authors in Science in 1980, in which they report geochemical evidence for an asteroid impact from K-Pg layers in Italy. More…
Edward J. Olsen (1927-2020)
The meteoritical community lost a remarkable scientist, mentor, colleague and friend with the passing of Edward J. Olsen on January 30, 2020 at his home in Madison, Wisconsin. Ed is survived by his wife of 38 years, Lorain Olsen, his daughters Andrea Southwood and Ericka Olsen and his grandson Jacob Taggart. More…
Ahmed El Goresy (1934-2019)
Ahmed El Goresy died at his home in Heidelberg on October 3, 2019, at the age of 85. Ahmed El Goresy was a highly regarded mineralogist with a worldwide reputation. His research focused on minerals and mineral assemblages of extraterrestrial samples. With his major tool, reflected light microscopy, he studied meteorite samples from asteroids, Moon, and Mars, and lunar rocks and terrestrial impactites. More…
Laurel Wilkening (1944-2019)
Prof. Laurel Wilkening, a meteoriticist, university administrator, and advocate for planetary science and for women’s issues, passed away on June 4, 2019, in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 74. Born in Richland, Washington, on Nov. 23, 1944, she grew up in Socorro, New Mexico, and got her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Reed College. More…