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The 2011 Moore Medal Award 
Awarded To: Steven D. Scott, Ph.D.
For distinction in the development of marine
minerals.
Professor Scott completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Geology at the
University of Western Ontario, which is nestled between the North American Great Lakes
Huron and Erie at London, Canada. During these critical, formative years as a young
scientist located in the middle of the North American Continent on the prosaic Saint
Lawrence Platform and yet surrounded by these great water bodies, Steve must have been
motivated to formulate his lifelong research passion, which is, quoting his own
Curriculum Vitae, “Hydrothermal systems, massive sulfide deposits and tectonics of the
modern seafloor and their relation to ancient ores on land.” Steve went on to earn a PhD
in Geochemistry and Mineralogy at Pennsylvania State University in 1968 and has ever
since been a major contributor to our understanding of seabed sulfide deposits.
Steve has received numerous honors. He has won the Haddon Forrester King
Medal from the Australian Academy of Science. He has been a Distinguished Lecturer
for the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. He was awarded the
inaugural title of Excellence Professor from the Dr. Werner Petersen Foundation in
Germany. He has an Honorary Degree of Doctor from the Université de Bretagne
Occidentale in Brest, France, and an Honorary title of Professor from the University of
Geosciences in Beijing, China, to name but a few of the awards he has won. Perhaps most
important, ranking next to his acknowledgement here as the 2011 Moore Award winner,
in 1977 he had dinner with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of "A tribute to
young Canadians who have achieved excellence in the Arts and Sciences."
Steve is the first ore deposits geologist and first Canadian to witness the formation
of metal sulfide deposits by hot spring activity on the modern seafloor. He is one of the
first to conduct research on these as analogues for ancient ore deposits on land. Steve was
the first to recognize that seafloor deposits could be an economic resource. He has also
conducted seminal research with biogeochemists to examine the process of bacterial
biomineralization. Of great importance to us marine mining folks, Steve is the codiscoverer,
with Ray Binns of CSIRO, of several deep seafloor metal-precipitating
hydrothermal sites that are currently the primary target for commercial mining by Nautilus
Minerals, offshore Papua New Guinea.
Steve has been a highly productive research scientist throughout his entire career,
with more than 170 publications to his name and a more than $83 million dollars won in
research grants used with his colleagues around the world to study seafloor hydrothermal
deposits. These are impressive numbers, but probably more impressive are the students
that Steve has supervised, including 26 Bachelors, 21 Masters, and 24 PhD degrees.
Many of these students, including Mark Hannington, Jan Peter and Tim McConachy, and
post-doctoral fellows such as Peter Herzig, and others are currently active in the study and development of marine minerals. Forget the honors, publications and research money,
though they are related. Steve’s students stand out as professional leaders in the development of marine minerals, and, though Steve is famous for many things, the training of these exceptional contributors is likely to be his most important and enduring
mark in his qualifications for the Moore award.
Steve was a Charter Member of the International Marine Minerals Society. He
served as President and Executive Board Member of the Society. He has been a strong and very popular contributor to the UMI and IMMS for more than twenty years. He is a wonderful example of the talent and character that epitomize the winners of the Moore Award.
The International Marine Minerals Society presents The Moore Medal award on occasion when the career of an eminent figure in marine mining and mineral activities warrants such an honor.
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