2006 Dorothy Hill Medal winner Dr. Rod Holcombe
Dorothy Hill Medal Rod Holcombe’s citation presented by Gregg Webb.
Rod is widely credited with injecting the fundamental concepts and principles of structural geology into the Australian mining exploration community with much benefit to the Queensland and Australian mining communities. He has also spent 32 years in academia, training a generation of Queensland geologists and providing important research on the Mt. Isa inlier, particularly in helping to construct a regional tectonic transect across the Inlier for the Mary Kathleen Fold Belt section. More recently he has been very active in contributing to our understanding of the New England Orogen in Queensland.
Dr. Rod Holcomb obtained his BSc(Honours) from the University of Sydney and his PhD from Stanford University. He currently is an Honorary Researcher at the University of Queensland, Coordinator of the UQ Exploration Research Initiative – group of UQ active and retired academic staff promoting research in the minerals industries, and a Principle of Holcombe Coughlin & Associates, a Brisbane-based consulting company for the minerals industry. He is also an FGSAust.
Rod’s main areas of interest as: structural analysis, particularly the characterisation of strain, flow kinematics, and geometry of metamorphic rocks and shear zones in mountain ranges; the evolution of orogenic belts; and the structural control of mineralisation. He has also developed and made available a range of computer applications for use in mapping and structural analysis. He has forty-three major publications on Queensland geology and has published four geological maps. He also has numerous other publications dealing with metamorphism and structural geology, including much recent work in South America. In concert with his research he has trained numerous Honours and PhD students, many of whom have been successful in exploration careers and/or academia	GSAQ Chairman Gregg Webb and Rod Holcombe at the Awards Night.
Response of thanks by Rod Holcombe
Thankyou very much. I am not going to say much now because I am going to join Nick in the talk, but I am very honoured to receive this medal. It really does mean something to me, for all sorts of reasons. One, knowing Dorothy was a plus, a bonus to all of this. The one thing I would really like to say is, I have learned, and been at the University of Queensland for 32 years before sailing out to do other things, and I arrived wet behind the ears, and not knowing that I was wet behind the ears. I almost have to apologise to students from 32 years ago for being wet behind the ears, because I really do owe a debt of gratitude to students. They may not realise this, but I learned enormously from my students. I also learned a lot from people here that I have talked to and argued with, people like Cec Murray who I have had arguments with, but each one you come out learning something. But the students have been tremendous and they are the backbone to receiving the medal.

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