PENROSE MEDAL: TECTONIC STUDIES OF THE EARTH, MARS, AND BEYOND: THE JOURNEY OF AN EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENTIST

Growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China fomented a life-long aversion to arbitrary authorities, a spirit reflected throughout my research career. I began my tectonic studies by mapping thrusts and detachment faults in the western United States under Greg Davis’ supervision at USC. Modeling fault mechanics and reconstructing fault kinematics inspired by field mapping instilled a system-based approach in my later research. This approach was extended through the integration of geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, geomorphology, and geophysics in my collaborative work in the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen with Mark Harrison, my graduate students, and numerous colleagues within and outside UCLA. The integrated cross-discipline research we adopted in the Himalayan-Tibetan studies has greatly influenced my subsequent work on slow earthquakes, tectonic tremors, early Earth tectonics, Mars, icy satellites, and now the Pluto-Charon system. My journey as an Earth and planetary scientist taught me three lessons. (1) Proclamations from authorities need to be challenged. (2) Science is not a popularity contest. (3) Explaining a single element in a geologic system yields highly non-unique hypotheses that rarely answer the central scientific question. In contrast, an approach that considers all facets and all elements of a geological system provides the best chance to reveal how Nature works.