Eos, Vol. 76, No. 15, April 11, 1995 than the Geodesy, Geomagnetism and Paleo- magnetism, or Planetology Sections, all of which are thriving and viable components of the Union. Section activity has grown at a rate similar to that of the membership increase. The num- ber of papers published in AGU journals in 1992 and 1993 were 337 and 352, respec- tively. The number of papers presented at AGU-sponsored meetings in 1992 and 1993 were 1,445 and 2,343, respectively. Article III of the AGU statutes clearly provides for subdivision "upon Council approval." In practice, only one Section has subdivided be- AGU Orcutt Receives Ewing Medal PAGES 148-149 The 1994 Maurice Ewing Medal was pre- sented to John A. Orcutt at the Fall Meeting in San Francisco last December. The medal rec- ognizes significant contributions to understanding physical, geophysical, and geological processes in the ocean and out- standing service to the marine sciences. Citation "The nineteenth recipient of the Maurice Ewing Medal is John A. Orcutt, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to marine geophysics. The medal is awarded jointly by AGU and the Navy. John is the natural candi- date for this honor: he has been in service to the Navy for 12 years and to Scripps for 21 years. Further, there is some parallelism in the careers of Maurice Ewing and John Or- cutt: they have been and are tireless (almost compulsive) data takers trying to unravel the secrets of the Earth beneath the sea. "John's parents were farmers and ranchers in the small community of Holyoke, Colo. Of his high school graduating class of 39, at least 25 went on to graduate school. John became a midshipman at Annapolis, was commissioned in 1966, and took a masters degree in physical chemistry at the University of Liverpool as a Fulbright Scholar while in uniform. He re- turned, married Sharyn, moved eight times in five years, and retired from the Navy with the rank of Commander in 1973. His last assign- ment was that of Chief Engineer on the nuclear submarine USS Kamehameha. "John became a Scripps graduate student in 1973, and received his Ph.D. in three years! I have asked Sharyn what it was that made John change his career. Sharyn says he never changed: that the love of science was always dominant ever since Holyoke High School. fore now, the Space Physics and Aeronomy Section. Their experience has been positive. Arguments against reorganization were considered, including: Will it increase bu- reaucracy? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Will it be deleterious to interdisciplinary studies? In each case the arguments for proceeding were compelling. The Council's action at the Fall meeting was positive, and the Ocean Sciences Sec- tion, after almost 4 years of careful evaluation, is now constituted in four subdivi- sions, each to be represented by an elected secretary. As your section president during "John's thesis was on the structure of the ocean crust and upper mantle. Among his the- sis advisors was Bill Menard, who has had a great influence on John's subsequent career. The theme of that career has been the applica- tion of seismic methods to the understanding of the Earth. Among John's 100 published pa- pers are those dealing with geologic problems, with methods of data analysis, particularly in- verse methods, and with instrumentation, particularly bottom and borehole seis- mometry. In 1978, John went down in the ALVINto look at some "smokers" on the East Pacific Rise. John has just returned from a month of dropping ocean bottom seismome- ters onto the Australia-Antarctic Discordance at 49°S (you can tell because he is still a little green around the edges). "Maurice Ewing pioneered the deploy- ment of autonomous instruments on the deep seafloor. This was in connection with seafloor photography. The challenges were not so much optical; as always they had to do with the ocean environment: to locate inter- esting objects, to hold the camera steady, and to bring it back. Accordingly, he devel- oped free-falling cameras that dropped ballast and returned to the surface pulled by gasoline-filled balloons. Ewing had some problem convincing the Navy that this was a practical idea. I remember a visit to Woods Hole in the winter of 1941 by a skeptical Navy Commander. Ewing volunteered that this would be useful for identifying sunken ves- sels. By an incredible stroke of luck, Ewing had obtained a picture of the name plate of a sunken destroyer. Ewing got his money. "The 20 years that John has been associ- ated with bottom seismometry have seen dramatic improvements in technology. The increase in recording capacity from mega- bytes to gigabites enables passive deployments for several months. Precise ship- board navigation has led to tomographic three-dimensional imaging of the oceanic crust, results that Ewing could only have this transition, I assure you that through these actions we hope to increase representation and communication and to identify and en- courage the interdisciplinary activities in which the Section takes pride. We also hope to provide a focus for the large number of geologists and geophysicists who claim the Ocean Sciences Section as a second home, as they are equally concerned with ship and facility support to enable their scien- tific observations of the oceanic world.—P. Brewer, President, Ocean Sciences Section imagined were possible. However, John is still looking for the seismic equivalent of pho- tographing the name plate of a wreck. "By now, Orcutt has been Director of the La Jolla Laboratories of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics for a decade. I don't know what it is that makes for leadership, but John has it. He is gone much of the time, has a hands-off policy (unlike Ewing) but is to- tally informed. People naturally come to him and tell him what is happening. He listens well, and he is interested in solutions, not problems. John's many students are held on a long leash, but he holds them fully account- able. They thrive by it."—WalterH. Munk, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif. Response "Thank you, Walter, for the very flattering ci- tation. As you are all now aware, I've just returned from sea and an experiment in the fro- zen Southern Ocean. It is characteristic of oceanographers that they are compelled to tell those colleagues they first see on land all about their expedition and successes. For me, you are that group, and I'm dying to tell you all about it! Fortunately for you, I only have 5 minutes! "I have not arrived at this evening and the Ewing Medal by myself—I've had much un- This page may be freely copied.