Mathilde Cannat receives the 2023 Arthur Holmes Medal from the EGU
Mathilde Cannat, from the Marine Geosciences team of the IPGP, is awarded for her contribution to the understanding of mid-ocean ridges in terms of tectonic processes and dynamics. This prize is awarded to scientists who have reached an outstanding international level in the Earth-solid field of Geosciences, for their merit and scientific achievements.
Publication date: 05/05/2023
Awards and Distinctions, Press, Research
Related teams :
Marine Geosciences
Mathilde Cannat has always been passionate about ocean floor tectonics, integrating a wide variety of approaches, such as petrology and geophysics, which have become her main tools for exploring mid-ocean ridges, leading her to propose several fundamental models for the formation, composition and deformation of the oceanic crust. Our current view of slow-spreading ridges is largely the result of her research.
Mathilde’s contribution to the field of tectonics is undoubtedly remarkable, in terms of observing, characterising and quantifying the structures and processes at work during ocean floor spreading.
In the early 1990s, she developed new concepts of oceanic crust formation and mantle rock emplacement at the axis of mid-ocean ridges, concepts that quickly became classics and are still relevant today.
Mathilde has also conducted many campaigns (17 as mission leader) on the Atlantic and South-West Indian ridges, studying their tectonics, magmatism and hydrothermalism by applying multiple data acquisition techniques (submersible dives, dredging, multibeam mapping, gravity modelling, seismic reflection and refraction, heat flow, seismicity studies and temporal monitoring of observatory sites). These methods have enabled her to quantify many aspects of mantle exhumation dynamics at different scales (from the grain up to the lithospheric scale) and to better characterise the mechanisms of tectonic plate divergence at ocean ridges.
