McMechan receives Ewing Medal

Dean Clark, TLE editor

George McMechan, professor of geophysics at the University of Texas at Dallas since 1983, received SEG's highest honor, the Maurice Ewing Medal, at the Sunday's Honors and Awards Ceremony at Society's 82nd Annual Meeting in Las Vegas.

McMechan's prolific research activity, which now spans more than four decades, has earned him recognition as "perhaps the most complete technical geophysicist who ever lived." He has authored over 200 articles in SEG publications (89 since 1997) over an astonishing range of topics: seismic (acoustic, elastic, multicomponent, viscoelastic, and poro-elastic isotropic and anisotropic wave propagation, and the corresponding inversion, imaging, and migration processes; seismic physical characterization and interpretation, with applications to reservoir and aquifer characterization, AVO, crosswell and VSP surveys; earthquake source studies; and wide-aperture analyses) to electromagnetic (ground-penetrating radar forward and inverse problems; engineering and environmental problems).

In his citation for McMechan, Larry Lines, former SEG president, wrote: "As a researcher, author, mentoring professor, he has had an incredible and lasting impact on exploration geophysics."
Honorary Membership was given to Kurt Marfurt of the University of Oklahoma for "significant advances in seismic interpretation" and Mark Zoback of Stanford University for "many significant accomplishments in the geophysical specialty of geomechanics."

Yu Zhang of CGGVeritas received the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal for "a multitude of recent contributions to seismic migration and inversion."

The Reginald Fessenden Award was shared by Xianhuai Zhu and Jie Zhang for "their outstanding joint contributions to the development of seismic tomographic solutions to the problem of accurate imaging with complex near-surface geology."

The Cecil Green Enterprise Award went to KMS Technologies, founded in 1999, and now a major provider of niche technology, most notably electromagnetic instrumentation, for exploration and reservoir characterization. The Edinburgh Anisotropy Project received the Distinguished Achievement Award for its sustained research (over the past 24 years) which substantially advanced the science of geophysics by demonstrating the presence, analysis, and value of seismic anisotropy.
A precedent was set by the recognition of Cezar Iacob with Special Commendation. It was the first time this award has been presented for contributions by a student.

Life Membership was given to John Bradford, Frank D. Brown, and Bob Wyckoff for their service to SEG over several years.