BP gift endows new professorship in earth sciences

BP and the University of Cambridge have joined forces to create a new professorship in Earth Sciences. Enabling Cambridge to retain its world-leading position in geophysics research and teaching, The BP Foundation McKenzie Professor of Earth Sciences will provide senior intellectual leadership in the flourishing Geophysics research group in the University's Department of Earth Sciences. Professor Dan McKenzie, FRS, for whom the professorship is named, is one of the most distinguished international earth scientists of the last 50 years, the foremost figure in the field of his generation. He has played a pivotal role in research areas such as plate tectonics, the evolution of sedimentary basins, mantle convection and the interior evolution of planets. His fundamental work on plate tectonics in the late 1960s, followed by his insights into the origin of sedimentary basins, are responsible for oil and gas exploration strategies on continental margins and in their interiors, with a commercial value to oil companies of many billions of dollars. His thinking has inspired generations of young scientists who have gone on to become leaders in both academia and industry. Speaking at a ceremony in Cambridge to celebrate the establishment of the professorship, Professor James Jackson, the Head of Department, said: "The aim of the Department of Earth Sciences is to understand how our planet works and to train current and future generations to make informed, balanced use of that knowledge.