William Lowrie

The 2022 Arthur Holmes Medal & Honorary Membership is awarded to William Lowrie for groundbreaking work in almost every aspect of the application of rock magnetism and palaeomagnetism to Earth history and Earth dynamics.

William Lowrie was Chair of Geophysics at ETH (Zurich) for 30 years until his retirement in 2004. William Lowrie has maintained a research and publication activity at a remarkable level. William Lowrie is a world renowned geophysicist, who has focused on rock magnetism and paleomagnetism. He is one of the world leaders in these disciplines that have revolutionized the geosciences since the 1960s. The breadth of his applications of magnetism to the earth have covered elements of solid state physics, fundamentals of magnetization of soils and minerals, development of a number of paleomagnetic laboratories, solutions of geological, and in particular tectonic problems and the polarity history of the geomagnetic field, with applications to magnetic stratigraphy. Perhaps his most influential work has been the magnetic stratigraphy of the Gubbio section in Italy encompassing a large part of the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary epochs.

William Lowrie has invested a lot in teaching and making young people fall in love with his field. He has published a tremendously influential text book, now in its third edition. He has also given generously of his time to administer and energise international cooperation, with important functions in international societies.