The 2003 W.A. Johnston Medal

The W.A. Johnston Medal is the highest award of the Canadian Quaternary Association, and is given for professional excellence in Quaternary research. Nominations can be made on behalf of anyone with a demonstrated publication record who has contributed to Quaternary research in Canada or abroad. The nominator must be a member of the Canadian Quaternary Association and the nominee may be a researcher residing anywhere in the world. The Johnston Medal was named after William Albert Johnston, born in 1874 in Aberarder, Ontario. He joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1905, where he worked until his retirement in 1939. Johnston's research concentrated on the Quaternary, and his investigations helped define the former limits and historical drainage routes of the eastern glacial Great Lakes. His study of the surficial geology of the Ottawa–Georgian Bay region indicated the extent of isostatic uplift in the area and accurately defined the western limits of the Champlain Sea Transgression in the Ottawa valley. Johnston spent many years investigating the limits of glacial Lake Agassiz. He also helped establish water supplies for Regina and Moose Jaw, and he was an authority on placer gold deposits. He extensively studied the Fraser River and its delta, and helped to improve navigation in the area. Johnston wrote over sixty reports, memoirs and papers covering a wide variety of topics. The first award was made in 1987, and this year’s medallist is the twelfth to be so honoured. The committee had to choose between several very worthy nominees, and its members are thanked for their service in this difficult task. The award was presented at the banquet at the 2003 CANQUA conference in Halifax. Professor Claude Hillaire-Marcel, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and distinguished Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), is CANQUA’s 2003 W.A. Johnston Medallist. Dr. Hillaire-Marcel is one of the most prolific and best known internationally of the Quaternary scientists working in Canada today. The Centre de recherche en géochimie et géodynamique, or GÉOTOP as it is better known, was set up as a research facility in the late 1970's; it became a formal research centre at UQÀM in 1981, with Claude Hillaire-Marcel as its Founding Director (from 1981 to 1989). During this period he also served twice as Director of the Département des sciences de la Terre et de l'atmosphère (Department of Earth Sciences) at UQÀM (1983-1985 and 1987-1989), and then he did a second stint as Director of GÉOTOP from 1997 to 1999. For the last few years GÉOTOP has been affiliated with McGill University as well as with UQÀM. Dr. Hillaire-Marcel has held two endowed chairs: from 1989 to 2000 the Industrial Chair Hydro-Québec-NSERC-UQÀM, and from 2000 on an International Chair of UNESCO. A glance at Claude Hillaire-Marcel’s curriculum vitae shows that he has been extraordinarily active in many fields and in many parts of the world, but studies within Canada and in the adjacent seas to the east have always remained preeminent in his endeavors. During the last 30 years, he has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers, he has supervised 20 doctoral dissertations and 37 M.Sc. and D.E.A. theses, and in addition, he has had 13 scientists working with him as postdoctoral fellows (from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S.A.). His first papers dealt with Pleistocene marine faunas and isostatic rebound near Montréal, but he soon broadened his scope to include Ungava Bay and Hudson Bay. His first paper dealing with oxygen and carbon isotopes appeared in 1976, and within a few years he was involved in dating studies utilizing isotopes …