Geosed - Organizzazione

Professor Isabella Premoli-Silva has been one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of micropaleontology and stratigraphy for over 40 years, publishing regularly on many related topics in Cretaceous and Tertiary stratigraphy. She has been an indefatigable and ardent practitioner and proponent of the use of foraminifera in many aspects of paleoceanography and biostratigraphy.

Isabella has been associated with some of the most important discoveries in soft-rock geology in the last several decades. Her paper with Hans Peter Luterbacher represents one such contribution that led Alvarez and colleagues to look carefully at the Gubbio section in Italy for the mass extinctions and bolide impact evidence at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. In fact when they were looking for the Iridium spike in support of their impact hypothesis, they turned to Isabella to provide the first-order stratigraphy. Her biostratigraphic studies on Gubbio section also provided the first calibration of the Upper Cretaceous to Eocene reversal polarity scale. Similarly, the discovery of the Cretaceous Superplume in the mid-Pacific was greatly aided by the presence of Isabella on board D/V Glomar Challenger whose expertise in Cretaceous foraminifera provided the crucial age control and stratigraphy needed for interpretations. Her careful foraminiferal biogeographic work on the Atlantic published in Journal of Geophysical Research (with Haq and Lohmann) remains a classic to this day. In short, Isabella has contributed prodigiously to many fields of soft-rock geology, including seminal papers in biostratigraphy and biochronology, foraminiferal taxonomy, paleoecology, paleobiogeography, paleoceanography and marine geology.

In addition to the shear volume and diversity of work, Isabella has also produced excellent students who have gone on to make names for themselves. She was an ardent supporter of deep sea drilling (DSDP and, later, ODP) in Europe and has been extremely active in its advisory structure, in addition to taking part as shipboard scientist on eight legs, two as co-chief scientist. She has also been very active in numerous Italian, European and International (IUGS) committees, serving the paleontological community in various capacities and as a member of the editorial boards of several paleontological and geological journals. For her work and her deep commitment to the geological community the Geological Society of America elected her an honorary fellow in 1988. In 2002 the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research honored her by awarding her the Cushman Award at their annual meeting. She also received the “Premio Linceo di Paleontologia” award from the Italian National Academy in 1988.

The above are but a few examples of Isabella Premoli-Silva’s accomplishments and her impressive productivity in the field of marine micropaleontology. She may easily be the most prolific still-practicing micropaleontologist of her generation in the world today and richly deserves the honor represented by SEPM’s Moore Medal. Raymond Moore himself would be proud of having Isabella Premoli-Silva as a recipient of the award named in his honor.