This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

H. JAY MELOSH ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
From Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-621-1877
April 30, 2003

University of Arizona Professor H. Jay Melosh of the Lunar and
Planetary Laboratory (LPL) has been elected to the National Academy
of Sciences, one of the most prestigious honors in American science.

The Academy, chartered in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln to guide
public action in science, yesterday elected 72 new members and 18
foreign associates from 11 countries in recognition of their
distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

"Jay Melosh literally wrote the book on impact cratering," said
Michael Drake, head of the LPL and UA planetary sciences department.
"His 1989 book made us all aware of the importance of
extraterrestrial impacts in shaping our Earth. The book ("Impact
Cratering: A Geologic Process," Oxford University Press) is still the
universal reference used by all scholars."

-----------------------------------
Contact Information
H. Jay Melosh
520-621-2896 jmelosh{at}lpl.arizona.edu

Michael Drake
520-621-6962 drake{at}lpl.arizona.edu
------------------------------------

Melosh said he learned of his election at 8 a.m. yesterday, when he
logged on his computer to check for an important e-mail message.

He said he didn't expect this one, from UA Regents' Professor and NAS
member J. Randy Jokipii, informing him of his election to the
Academy.

About an hour later, Melosh said, Jokipii reached him by phone from a
cab near a Washington, D.C., airport.

"Randy says he tried to get me out of bed with news at 7 a.m. (he
would not have!), but had to settle for e-mail because my home number
in the LPL phone listings is incorrect."

"I've been getting lots of phone calls, lots of e-mails. It is really
amazing," Melosh said. "I'm somewhat surprised. I figure I'd never be
elected because the science I do is sometimes controversial. It tends
to rock the boat."

Melosh said he is reluctant to compare or rank the honors he has been
given, but admits that "this one is certainly way up there."

"Jay's work has helped us understand the origin of the Moon in a
giant impact of a Mars-sized object with the growing Earth. Jay
figured out how we get meteorites from the Moon and Mars, helping us
understand that we had 'free' space missions courtesy of mother
nature," Drake said. 

"He has shown how impacts into the ocean cannot cause havoc the way
depicted in movies like Deep Impact - hint: giant waves break way out
to sea and dissipate their destructive energy by the time they reach
shore. 

"He has shown how the dinosaurs and most species on Earth perished 65
million years ago when a large impact into what is now Mexico ejected
material up through the atmosphere. This material reentered the
atmosphere like ballistic missiles, heating the atmosphere to hotter
than a conventional oven can achieve, thereby burning plants,
animals, and trees globally," Drake said.

"Jay has shown how enormous landslides travel tens of miles down very
shallow slopes. I could go on, but his contributions to knowledge are
extraordinary.

"Add to this scholarship the fact that he is an extraordinary
teacher, and he represents everything the State of Arizona would want
in a faculty member.

"He is also precisely the type of faculty member who could be
recruited by another university because of the short-sighted
budgetary recommendations of the legislature these past few years,"
Drake said. "The erosion of the university's budget must be reversed
if we are to retain scholars of the caliber of Jay Melosh."

Melosh graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in
physics from Princeton University in 1969, and earned his doctorate
in physics and geology from Caltech in 1973. He joined the UA faculty
in 1982, where he has supervised 12 doctoral students in planetary
sciences. 

Melosh is author or co-author of more than 150 scientific papers and
has served on numerous national and international committees and
panels that guide scientific planning, publications, facilities, and
awards in his discipline. His numerous awards and fellowships most
recently include the Barringer Medal of the Meteoritical Society
(1999), Asteroid 8216 "Melosh" approved by the International
Astronomical Union (2000), the Gilbert Medal of the Geological
Society of America (2001), and Fellow of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science (2001). 

Melosh is on the 12-member science team for Deep Impact, a $279
million robotic mission that will become the first to penetrate the
surface of a comet when it smashes its camera-carrying copper probe
into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005.

Those elected yesterday bring the total number of active NAS members
to 1,922. Present and former UA faculty members who have been elected
to the Academy are:

*    Henry Jay Melosh ­ planetary sciences, Lunar and Planetary
      Lab - 2003
*    Vicki L. Chandler ­ plant sciences - 2002
*    J. Randolph Jokipii - planetary sciences, Lunar and Planetary
      Lab- 2001
*    J. Roger P. Angel - astronomy and optical sciences - 2000
*    Margaret G. Kidwell - ecology and evolutionary biology - 1996
*    Brian A. Larkins - plant sciences, molecular and cellular
      biology -1996
*    William S. Bowers - entomology -1994
*    Vernon L. Smith - economics - 1995
*    John H. Law - biochemistry and entomology ­ 1992
*    William R. Dickinson - geosciences ­ 1992
*    C. Vance Haynes - anthropology and geosciences - 1990
*    Robert E. Dickinson - atmospheric sciences, hydrology,
      dendrochronology - 1988
*    W. David Arnett - astronomy and physics ­ 1985
*    Donald M. Hunten - planetary sciences, Lunar and Planetary
      Lab - 1981
*    Edward A. Boyse - microbiology and immunology - 1979
*    William R. Sears - aerospace and mechanical engineering ­ 1974
*    Frank J. Low - astronomy ­ 1974
*    Willis E. Lamb Jr. - physics ­ 1954
*    Herbert E. Carter - biochemistry ­ 1953

Additional information about the institution is available on the
Internet at http://national-academies.org. A full directory of NAS
members can be found online at http://national-academies.org/nas.

 - END OF FILE -
==========

@Message posted automagically by IMTHINGS POST 1.30
---