Cambridge: gift from BP to endow new professorship in earth sciences

BP is to fund the BP Foundation McKenzie Professor of Earth Sciences to lead the Geophysics research group at Cambridge University’s Department of Earth Sciences.

The chair is named after Dan McKenzie, one of the leading earth scientists of the last 50 years, who played a pivotal role in research areas such as plate tectonics, the evolution of sedimentary basins, mantle convection and the interior evolution of planets.

His fundamental work on plate tectonics in the late 1960s, followed by his insights into the origin of sedimentary basins, are responsible for oil and gas exploration strategies on continental margins and in their interiors, with a commercial value to oil companies of many billions of dollars.

Speaking at a ceremony in Cambridge to celebrate the establishment of the professorship, James Jackson, the Head of Department, said, “This new professorship, by strengthening academic and intellectual leadership at the highest level, will help us to provide students, who are faced with enormous challenges to do with energy, natural resources, climate, natural hazards and environmental protection, with the tools to meet them.

“We positively welcome BP’s continuing interest and participation in the work of the Department. We have found that BP’s involvement in our activities has been a source of intellectual and technical input that has been entirely beneficial and has never posed the remotest threat to our intellectual independence.”

Mike Daly, Chief Geologist for BP, said, “BP has endowed this professorship in perpetuity both to recognise Professor McKenzie’s unique and innovative contribution to science and to enable the university to build on the legacy of his tremendous achievements.”