Seminar

Professor Julian Pearce is presently Professor Emeritus at the Cardiff University. He is also an Honorary Research Professor at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (CAGS) in Beijing.

Professor Pearce received a first class honours degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1970, and obtained his PhD three years later from the University of East Anglia. Before moving to Cardiff in 2000, he held posts at the Open University, Newcastle University and Durham University in the UK. His early work involved major field projects on ophiolites (Troodos and Oman) and in the Chilean Andes. In 1985 and 1986, he took part in two Joint UK-Chinese Geotraverses across the Tibetan Plateau Lhasa-Golmud and Lhasa-Kathmandu. He has also taken part in research cruises to many parts of the oceans, to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and to the back arc basins of Tonga, Japan and the Scotia Sea. He has taken part in a number of Ocean Drilling Expeditions, and was co-chief scientist on IODP Leg 125 and (n 2014) IODP Expedition 352 to the Izu-Bonin-Mariana-Forearc. He has been head of both the International JOIDES Office and the European ESSAC Office, which provide science advice for the management of IODP. Analytically, he helped develop some of the first commercial XRF and ICP-MS instruments. Before switching to Emeritus status, he ran a multi-instrument laboratory for the Geochemical Fingerprinting of Earth Materials in Cardiff. He is presently one of the world’s top-cited Earth Scientists with c. 32,500 Google Scholar Citations (h=61; n=115) and is best known for his work on ophiolites, island arcs and the geochemical fingerprinting of rocks and minerals. His best-cited paper, on granite fingerprinting, presently has  >5000 citations. Professor Pearce received the Murchison Medal from the Geological Society of London for this work in 2014.