Marino Protti is a respected seismologist with a long list of well-cited journal articles on his CV. What makes Marino uniquely qualified for the Ambassador Award is his ability to spawn collaborations that advance earthquake forecasting and hazard mitigation.

Over his career Marino initiated numerous international research projects. He had three goals: first, do good science; second, exploit the geography and geology of Costa Rica to study the subduction seismic cycle; and third, raise public awareness in Costa Rica and the world about seismic hazard. His view was that all three goals would be best advanced by collaborations involving seismologists, geodesists, geologists and other scientists from around the world, each bringing their expertise (and instruments and funding) to the table.

When Marino started his career in the 1980s, there was little appreciation of seismic hazard. Marino worked tirelessly to get the message out that earthquake and volcano hazard could be forecast, and preparations could be made. For seismic hazard, that meant strengthening building codes. Decades later, his efforts paid off when an M 7.6 earthquake struck the northwest coast of Costa Rica. While damages were extensive, casualties were limited.

Early in his career, Marino worked with Costa Rican colleagues to establish Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica (OVSICORI). This is a remarkable organization, charged with earthquake and volcano monitoring and hazard mitigation, affiliated with the Universidad Nacional (UNA). OVSICORI-UNA maintains a sophisticated network of real-time and near-real-time geophysical monitoring equipment throughout the country. They are a model for other Central American nations facing similar hazards with limited resources.

Marino worked with American scientists involved with the National Science Foundation’s MARGINS program, which ran from 2001 to 2010, to get the northwest coast of Costa Rica declared a special focus site for the study of subduction zone earthquakes (a similar program continued the following decade under GeoPrisms). Seismic and geodetic networks were established to augment OVSICORI’s monitoring efforts, beginning in 2001 and continuing today. When the 2012 earthquake struck, more than a decade of spatially and temporally dense seismic and geodetic data had been collected, capturing the late stage of a seismic cycle and making the earthquake an exceptionally well monitored event.

Marino is currently working with other Central and South American countries on issues related to marine conservation and Law of the Sea. He is promoting the idea of Costa Rica as a signatory to the Antarctic Treaty. The hope is that this country, one of the few in the world without a standing army, can be a voice for conservation, research and continuation of that continent’s nonmilitary status. In these troubling times, we need more such efforts.

— Timothy Dixon
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida

It is with great humility that I receive this award while thanking both the colleagues who nominated me as well as the judges who chose me. More than as an individual merit, I want to acknowledge that what I have done in almost four decades is thanks to a chain of institutions and people. The Costa Rica Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (OVSICORI) is a great institution that has given me all the conditions to grow scientifically without bounds. OVSICORI can do that because behind it is the National University of Costa Rica with a strong commitment for public service. My colleagues from the United States, Japan and Europe have provided me with instrumentation and opportunities to contribute to the understanding of subduction process in Costa Rica, share it with the world, and trickle it down to the population of Costa Rica. As a result, I believe that Costa Rica is the country with the highest tectonically educated people in the world. As an example, thanks to the dissemination of the knowledge we are producing, most Costa Ricans can explain in simple words what subduction is. By abolishing the army and therefore not wasting money on defense, Costa Rica has been able to invest large amounts of resources in education and health care for all its citizens. I have been a direct beneficiary of these circumstances, and having come from a low-income family with half a dozen siblings (all of them with higher education degrees in science and engineering), my only merit has been to work hard to pay back my country for the investment it put into me.   The only thing I claim is the ability to take advantage of every opportunity my colleagues and life put in front of me. Some have taken me down to 4,000 m below the sea surface, and others down to Antarctica on two occasions. I tell students to also take every opportunity because each one will open more doors to grow in science and life. Going to Antarctica exposed me to the Antarctic Treaty, and since I saw its beauty, I pushed Costa Rica into becoming the 55th party of such a novel international treaty for peace, science and conservation, features for which Costa Rica is also known around the world. I only hope that this award will help me continue promoting Costa Rica as an excellent field laboratory to study subduction processes. — Marino Protti   Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional Heredia. Costa Rica