Marion Garçon and Daniel A. Stolper received the 2019 Hisashi Kuno Award at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2019, held 9–13 December in San Francisco, Calif. This early-career award recognizes “outstanding contributions to the fields of volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology.”  

It is my pleasure to introduce Daniel Stolper, recipient of the 2019 Kuno Award. This award is given in honor of Hisashi Kuno, who was instrumental in our understanding of subduction zone magmatism, worked with Harry Hess in the years leading to the formulation of the modern theory of plate tectonics, and was an intellectual leader in petrology throughout his career at the University of Tokyo.

Daniel is a worthy recipient of this award for a number of reasons. Most obvious are his recent papers on the evolution of the oxidation state of Earth’s ocean and atmosphere, based on the observed variation through time of the oxidation state of iron in weathered igneous rocks and arc volcanics. This body of work elegantly illuminates the diverse roles of igneous rocks as records and hosts of oxidation and of magmatism as an active part of Earth’s redox cycles.

It is also noteworthy that these studies did not arise from a formal background in igneous petrology, but rather grew organically from Daniel’s training and interests across diverse subjects in the natural sciences. He is a genuine polymath whose contributions span great intellectual breadth and often come about by connecting the insights of one field to the needs of another. Over the past 5 years, Daniel has moved freely between whole-Earth, deep-time geochemistry; cutting-edge analytical technologies; experimental petrology; the geochemistry, petrology, and crystal chemistry of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks; petroleum geoscience; Pleistocene climate change; and biology and biochemistry. Every subject he has touched has resulted in novel inventions, incisive reinterpretations of old data, and bold new proposals.

Thank you for joining me in this celebration of Daniel’s receipt of the Kuno Award in recognition of his groundbreaking scholarly contributions to the Earth sciences.

—John M. Eiler, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

Thank you, John, and thank you to the VGP section for this wonderful honor. My scientific education began at age six when I started going with my father, Ed Stolper, a Caltech geology professor, to weekly Saturday lunches attended by Caltech geology students, postdocs, and professors, including Sam Epstein, Lee Silver, and Dave Stevenson. At these lunches, all topics, from science to pop culture, were debated with vigor. What I remember most is that everyone, no matter their age or background, was treated as an intellectual equal. These lunches shaped two of my core scientific values. First, it is the idea that matters, not from whom it comes. Second, we are in the business of the search for the truth, and intellectual debate is key to this endeavor. My formal geological training began at Harvard with inspiring classes from Dan Schrag, Paul Hoffman, Ann Pearson, and Andy Knoll. After an amazing year in Don Canfield’s lab, I began graduate school at Caltech working with John Eiler. John served as a role model on how to be both a scientist and a mensch. Finally, I was a postdoc at Princeton with Michael Bender. This was a formative experience in which Michael ingrained in me the importance of rigor. I have been an assistant professor at Berkeley for 3 years and am blessed with supportive colleagues. Although I am often unsure of where my research is headed, these experiences, mentors, and colleagues give me confidence it is headed somewhere. Finally, I thank my family. My father has immeasurably influenced my scientific principles and values. I especially wish to thank my wife, Leslie, for her unending support and my daughter, Yael, for reminding that there is more to life than work, even if that reminder comes at four in the morning. —Daniel A. Stolper, University of California, Berkeley