Paul Mueller honored with a special session at the Geological Society of America Meeting in Seattle.
A special session in celebrating of the career contributions of Professor Paul Mueller was a feature of the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Seattle in October. The session included talks and posters centered on the topic of the origin and evolution of the continental crust.
Paul A. Mueller has made career-long contributions to the study of the genesis and evolution of continental crust. Paul is highly regarded by his peers and the international geochemical research community in general and has remained at the forefront of geochemical and isotopic research through his field and laboratory investigations as well as his continued development of advanced analytical methods and instrumentation for Earth sciences. He is one of the leading experts on the use of Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers (MC-ICP-MS) for measuring radiogenic isotopes. His research has focused on the use of major and trace element geochemistry, and the radiometric systems of U-Pb, Rb-Sr, Hf-Lu, and Sm-Nd in order to improve our understanding of the tectonic and geochemical evolution of the continents. He has been a principal player in identifying some of the oldest rock units in North America and striving to document their origins and significance in terms of the formation Earth’s early crust and the onset of plate tectonics. His research has addressed Archean geology of the Wyoming Province, remobilization of this crust in the Paleoproterozoic Great Falls Tectonic Zone, detrital zircon geochronology of the Mesoproterozoic Belt and Uinta Basins, and Phanerozoic history of the assembly of the Appalachian Orogen. Paul has been a generous scientific collaborator, offering his experience, insights, and use of his laboratory and analytical facilities to colleagues and students for over 40 years.
