The 2024 Woollard Award: Larry Douglas Brown

Larry Brown, Professor at Cornell University, is the 2024 recipient of the Woollard Award for his many contributions to understanding mountain belts (modern and ancient) using geophysics. Larry was one of the leaders of the COCORP (Consortium for Continental Reflection Profiling) program of seismic reflection imaging of the continents (1975-1992) that helped re-write the textbooks on deep crustal structure and the implications for the geodynamic processes of continental evolution -- from thin-skinned tectonics in the Southern Appalachians, a flat Moho beneath the highly extended Basin and Range, and deeply-penetrating crustal thrust faulting in the Proterozoic Wind Rivers, Wyoming. The success of COCORP motivated similar projects around the world. Larry was a leader of the multi-decade INDEPTH (International DEep Profiling of Tibet and the Himalayas) project that was foundational for understanding the processes that built and control the present evolution of Earth’s largest plateau -- documenting the extent of underthrusting of the Indian subcontinent beneath the Himalayas, emphasizing the role of partial melting of the crust in the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and establishing the fate of the subducted Indian lithosphere. Brown has contributed to seismic imaging of the structure of the Ural Mountains in Eurasia (URSEIS), Taiwan (TAIGER), the Caribbean (SEA-CALIPSO), and South America. His earliest work used precise levelling surveys to measure ground deformation throughout the USA including the Socorro Magma Body, New Mexico and post-seismic displacements from the 1964 Alaska earthquake. Larry’s recent work has expanded into volcanology and geothermal energy and the use of Ground Penetrating Radar for archaeology. The results from these studies reverberate in modern discussions about channel-flow and deep detachments in the growth of orogens, the stability and longevity of crustal roots, and the role of magmatism in crustal evolution.