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2005
Dorothy Hill Medal winner
Dr Christopher Fielding
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Dorothy Hill Medal
Chris Fieldings’s citation.
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I would like to nominate Dr Christopher R. Fielding for the
Dorothy Hill Medal for contributions to the advance of geological knowledge
in the State of Queensland.
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Since arriving in Australia
in 1986, Chris has had a profound effect on our understanding of the basin
systems of Queensland,
and particularly the coal basins. His research interests encompass the
sedimentology and stratigraphy of non-marine, coastal, and shallow marine
depositional systems. Although part of his research has been focussed in
drilling projects in Antarctica, most of it has been related to the geology
of eastern Australia, and
specifically Queensland.
The bulk of it has been aimed at applications to exploration for mineral
resources, principally hydrocarbons and coal, although he has made brief
forays into the stratigraphic-sedimentologic framework of gold and base metal
exploration targets in the northern New England Fold Belt. He has had a
long-term interest in the development of genetic models for coal deposits in
different tectonic and depositional settings, and this has both arisen from,
and been applied to his work on the Bowen Basin. He has also applied himself
to the prognostic and diagnostic applications of sedimentology to oil and gas
exploration, again mainly in Queensland Basins. Recently his research turned
to the detailed description and sedimentology of the Quaternary
Burdekin River
delta system as part of the current move to understand Queensland coastal systems.
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The criteria for the Dorothy Hill Medal are that “such contributions
shall be judged on the quality and volume of contributions made through
publication of original research”. Chris has certainly been a prolific
author, and much of it has been in the international literature. He is a
respected scientist with an international reputation (he was editor of
Sedimentology for a number of years) and in just over 16 years at the University of Queensland
he, together with his postgraduate students and other colleagues, published
over 35 papers on the geology of Queensland
(in addition to another 19 on areas outside Australia).
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Chris has now left Queensland for a
personal Chair in sedimentology at the University
of Nebraska, but he has left a major
impact on Queensland.
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Response of
thanks by Chris Fielding
– Chris was unable to attend and his thanks
was delivered as a letter read by Hon. Sec. Paul Blake
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I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive the Dorothy
Hill Medal for 2005, and I thank the committee, nominator and members. I
spent sixteen happy years living and working in Queensland, and enjoyed every moment. My
research efforts throughout this time were centred on aspects of Queensland geology,
with particular emphasis on the Devonian to Triassic succession, and I hope
to persist in those research interests for the foreseeable future. I have
been privileged to be able to work with many excellent geoscientists over
this period, and I wish to acknowledge their considerable role in my
scientific education. For tolerating my not insubstantial idiosyncrasies, and
for great times in the field and the laboratory, I owe a great debt of thanks
to a large number of colleagues and collaborators, postdoctoral fellows and
students. It would be a considerable challenge to name everyone who deserves
mention, but I would like to pay special tribute to John Draper, Rod Holcombe
and John Jell, who were instrumental in fostering my interest and developing
my understanding of Queensland
geology, and without whose insights I could never have achieved what I have.
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With heartfelt thanks for this great honour.
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Chris Fielding
Lincoln, Nebraska
24th May, 2005
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