The recipient of the 2002 Joseph A. Cushman Award is Isabella Premoli Silva in celebration of her more than four decades of foraminiferal research, and for her tireless efforts of service to the geologic profession. Professor Premoli Silva is one of the most widely recognized names in foraminiferal paleontology and her research contributions and service to various international committees and commissions are familiar to stratigraphic paleontologists worldwide. She authored or co-authored more than 170 papers concerning micropaleontology, stratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, paleobiogeography, and paleoceanography, and spanning the geologic record from Paleozoic to Recent. Her special emphasis is on Cretaceous to Miocene planktonic foraminifera. Professor Premoli Silva is the world’s leading expert in the identification of planktonic foraminifera in thin-section. Fortunately, she has always been eager to share this knowledge with many students and colleagues.

As a student of Professor Maria Bianca Cita at the University of Milan, Isabella was well grounded in the rich geologic and micropaleontologic heritage of Italy and the Mediterranean region. Her thesis on "Planktonic Foraminifera of the Type Langhian (Northern Italy)" was just the beginning of her own contributions to this storied heritage. She has gone on to contribute voluminously to the Mesozoic-Cenozoic geologic and paleoceanographic history of Italy. Isabella was an instructor at the University of Milan from 1960 to 1967 and has been a Professor of Micropaleontology since 1968. She is currently the Chairman of the Department of Earth Sciences at Milan. Isabella was elected as an honorary fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1988; the same year she received the "Premio Linceo for Paleontology" by the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei.

One of her earliest publications (with Hanspeter Luterbacher in 1964), on the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in Gubbio, Italy, was the first to carefully document the mass extinction of Cretaceous planktonic foraminifera, the presence of tiny Cretaceous survivors, and the rapid recovery of Danian assemblages. This classic work is one of the most widely cited papers in micropaleontology and it provided fodder for the impact hypothesis of Alvarez and others (1980) published in Science and based on their important discovery of Iridium enrichment in the boundary clay at the Gubbio section.

Isabella’s micropaleontologic expertise reaches well beyond Italy. She has been actively involved with scientific ocean drilling since the early 1970’s. Isabella sailed as a paleontologist on five legs of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (Legs 15, 61, 76 extension, 77, and 89) and one leg of the Ocean Drilling Program (Leg 132). In addition, she served as Co-Chief Scientist on ODP Legs 144 and 198. She was a shore-based scientist on another 7 DSDP and ODP legs. Her publications based on these deep-sea studies have had a major impact on the paleoceanographic community. She has collaborated with a number of individuals multiple times, including Walter Alvarez, Annie Arnaud-Vanneau, Michael Arthur, Anne Boersma, Hans Bolli, Tim Bralower, Jim Channell, Maria Bianca Cita, Rodolfo Coccioni, Elisabetta Erba, Al Fischer, Simone Galeotti, Janet Haggerty, Pamela Hallock Muller, Tim Herbert, Hugh Jenkyns, William Lowrie, Hanspeter Luterbacher, Simonetta Monechi, Giovanni Napoleone, Alda Nicora, Marisa Nocchi, Maria Rose Petrizzo, Charles Pomerol, Maurizio Ripepe, Sey Schlanger, Bill Sliter, Silvia Spezzaferri, John Tarduno, Maria Emilia Tornaghi, Davide Verga, and David Watkins.

Isabella’s contributions to her profession are monumental. She has been the Italian representative to four International Global Correlation Projects: IGCP 58-Mid-Cretaceous Events, IGCP 199-Rare Events in Geology, IGCP 262-Tethyan Cretaceous Correlation, and IGCP 362-Tethyan and Boreal Correlation. She has served or is serving on the editorial boards of eleven journals (including the Journal of Foraminiferal Research). She has been a Councilor, a President, a Delegate, a Chairman or co-Chairman, and a member of many professional organizations and subcommissions. Isabella has also contributed to four major taxonomic atlases of planktonic foraminifera, including the mid-Cretaceous (Robaszynski and others, 1979), Late Cretaceous (Robaszynski and others, 1984), Paleocene (Olsson and others, 1999), and Eocene (Pearson and others, in preparation).

As an example of Isabella’s impact on the geological sciences, the Piobbico core was drilled through a mid-Cretaceous section in central Italy. This was the first land-based operation to implement DSDP/ODP-like procedures in archiving and sampling a Cretaceous sequence. Isabella’s organization of the team that drilled, split, described, and polished the Piobbico core was crucial to the success of that project. This project included Italian and American geologists such as Alfred Fischer (University of Southern California), Lisa Pratt (Indiana University), and Maurizio Ripepe (University of Florence). It also launched the graduate careers of a number of others, including Elisabetta Erba and Maria Emilia Tornaghi (University of Milan), and Timothy Herbert (Brown University). Results from study of this core, and ensuing coring operations in central Italy directed by Isabella and her collaborators, have led to new insights on linkages between biotic events and changes in ocean chemistry that occurred during episodes of global dysoxia and in relationships with Milankovitch cycles.

Over the years, Professor Premoli Silva has trained and inspired new generations of micropaleontologists and geologists with her incredible breadth of knowledge of planktonic and benthic foraminifera. Tim Herbert was a graduate student at Princeton studying under Professor Alfred Fischer at the time of the Piobbico project: "She played such a huge role in my graduate progress that I’ll always be grateful. One of my fondest memories of my Italian days is seeing Isabella and Bill Sliter on the outcrop, doing foram zonation with hand lenses. Of course, they were right on the money. I was amazed." The two of us have also known Isabella since our graduate days in the early 1980’s. We have been extensively influenced by her published research and lively presentations, and have benefited from our discussions at meetings or on the outcrop. RML recently had the opportunity to sail with Isabella on ODP Leg 198, and "for me, it was an exciting two-month short course on planktonic taxonomy, biostratigraphy, and evolution."—life-long learning at its best!

Professor Isabella Premoli Silva is being honored with the Joseph A. Cushman Award for her vast contributions to the study of Mesozoic and Cenozoic foraminifera; for her leadership in the fields of micropaleontology, paleoceanography, stratigraphy, and scientific ocean drilling; for her role as a graduate advisor and mentor; and for her impact as a role model for young women and men geoscientists alike.

 

R. Mark Leckie and Brian Huber

Journal of Foraminiferal Research, April 2003, v. 33, no. 2, p. 171-172

 

More information about Isabella Premoli-Silva:

http://users.unimi.it/micropal/prem/prem.htm

http://www.geosed.it/premi2.php