Carolyn J. Boulton

TS Tectonics and Structural Geology

The 2021 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists is awarded to Carolyn J. Boulton for outstanding research in the understanding of chemical-mechanical interactions during fault slip and the comparison of microstructures developed in experimental and natural samples.

Carolyn Boulton is a multitalented and expert scientist who rigorously and innovatively integrates diverse scientific data to generate ‘step changes’ in understanding of chemical-mechanical interactions during fault slip and stimulates scientific cooperation. Particularly noteworthy is Boulton’s assiduous documentation of the microstructures developed in the experimental samples and her comparison of these to natural examples documented during extensive related field studies.

Boulton was a key member of the Alpine Fault – Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) Science Team in both 2011 and 2014. On both projects, she worked tirelessly to systematically document and archive drilled samples. She subsequently analysed a number of these samples, considering both their mechanical and chemical/mineralogical properties and generating fundamental datasets that have provided key bases for many future studies. Integration of these different forms of data into a series of publications demonstrates her scientific flexibility and productivity. Boulton also invested substantial effort into ensuring the scientific teams on these projects worked in a structured and collegial way and in communicating the science of these projects to the New Zealand population (e.g., Boulton et al. 2017).