Announcing the 2012 Shoemaker Impact Cratering Award Recipient
November 16, 2012
The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) is pleased to announce that the 2012 recipient of the Eugene M. Shoemaker Impact Cratering Award is Cameron Mercer of Arizona State University.
Mercer is pursuing a Ph.D. with a heavy emphasis on geochronology that involves in situ laser ablation 40Ar-39Ar analyses of Apollo samples in Kip Hodges’ laboratory and the geochemistry of select meteorites in Meenakshi Wadhwa’s laboratory. He is supplementing those studies with a geochronologic study of Upheaval Dome, which is a terrestrial complex impact crater in Utah. That latter project is the one being supported through the GSA Planetary Geology Division’s Eugene M. Shoemaker Impact Cratering Award.
The Eugene M. Shoemaker Impact Cratering Award is designed to support undergraduate and graduate students, of any nationality, working in any country, in the disciplines of geology, geophysics, geochemistry, astronomy, or biology.
Grants support the study of impact cratering processes on Earth and other bodies in the solar system, including asteroids and comets that produce impacts and the geological, chemical, or biological results of impact cratering.
This award is generously provided by the Planetary Geology Division of the Geological Society of America and administered by the LPI. It commemorates the work of Eugene (“Gene”) Shoemaker, who greatly influenced planetary sciences during the Apollo era and for several decades thereafter, including the discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn and colleague David Levy.
Proposals for next year’s award will be due in September 2013. Applications will be accepted beginning in late summer of 2013. Application details can be found at https://www.lpi.usra.edu/Awards/shoemaker/.
