Download Laureate 2016 Bios*Professor Peter Cawood

Professor Peter Cawood
Current Organisation
Administering Organisation
Discipline Area
The University of St Andrews, Scotland and
The University of Western Australia
Monash University
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth
Sciences
Fellowship project summary:
The pulse of the earth (FL160100168)
This project aims to establish the origin and evolution of the continental crust and its role in the long
term development of the Earth system. The continental crust hosts the resources on which we depend
and its evolution controls the environment in which we live. The crust’s record (including resources) is
episodic in space and time, but the origin of this periodicity is unresolved. Building on recent advances
on crustal development, the fellowship would work to resolve the origin of the episodic age pattern,
which affects the distribution of mineral systems and their prospectivity.
Australian Research Council funding: $2,851,557
About Professor Cawood
Professor Peter Cawood’s research involves field-based studies of mountain belts, including their
mineral deposits, and the insight they provide into Earth processes. His work ranges in scale from
global reconstructions to microscopic examination of mineral grains. He has worked in mountain belts
ranging in age from Archean to Recent, and from many disparate geographic areas around the globe
including Eastern and Western Australia, New Zealand, South America, China, Canada and the UK, as
well as modern analogues, mainly in the Pacific.
Professor Cawood is currently studying the generation and preservation of continental crust and, in
particular, he is concerned with potential bias in the geologic record and the implications this has for
understanding the origin of the crust and its mineral deposits.
Find out more about Professor Cawood and his research by visiting The University of St Andrews and
The University of Western Australia.
For further information about this funding scheme please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships
scheme page on the ARC website.