Dr. Robert E. Wallace, retired from the U.S. Geological Survey, will receive the Career Contribution Award from the Structural Geology and Tectonics Division of the Geological Society of America at their annual meeting in Denver. The award ceremony will be 5:30-6:30 p.m. October 29 in Room C209 of the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver.

Bob Wallace is a pioneer in the emerging field of paleoseismology, beginning with his careful study of streams offset along the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plains of central California. One of these streams is Wallace Creek, named for him, where there is an earthquake trail and interpretive display (developed by SCEC, visit the web site at http://www.scec.org/wallacecreek). Bob began his long-term study of the San Andreas fault with his PhD thesis at Caltech and concluded with the publication in 1990 of his landmark USGS Professional Paper 1515 on the San Andreas fault. In his work on the 1915 Pleasant Valley, Nevada, earthquake scarp, he worked out the geomorphic evidence for dating normal fault scarps in the Great Basin.

As Bob advanced to positions of more responsibility in USGS, he became a prime mover in a campaign to develop a national earthquake program. This campaign resulted in the establishment of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program in 1977. In 1986, as this program was in its early years, he put together a series of papers in a National Academy of Sciences volume, Active Tectonics, which included an overview paper by him on the societal importance of the study of earthquakes.

Bob Wallace began international work with a paper on an active earthquake rupture in Turkey. He is best known internationally for co-chairing International Geological Correlation Program Project 206, Worldwide Characterization of Major Active Faults, along with Ding Guoyu and Zhang Buchun of China and Bob Bucknam of USGS. This project brought together for the first time earthquake geologists from countries around the world, a collaboration that has continued to this day through the International Lithosphere Program, the INQUA Neotectonics Commission, and other forms.

Friends and associates of Bob Wallace are invited to come to the award ceremony.