Professor Peter Franklin Rawson

Honorary Professor

Pete Rawson grew up in Grimsby, then crossed the Humber to study Geology at the University of Hull,, where he graduated in 1963 and completed a PhD in 1966. He left Hull (very reluctantly!) in November 1966 to take up a post-doctoral fellowship at Queen Mary College, University of London. The whole of his academic career was spent in London, initially at QMC and then (from 1983) at University College London (UCL) where he is now Emeritus Professor of Geology. After taking early retirement in 2003 he held a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship from 2004-2005, based at UCL. In August 2006 Pete and his wife, Sue, ‘retired' to Scarborough to return to the joys of the Yorkshire coast and its magnificent geology. He was then made an Honorary Professor in the University of Hull, thus returning ‘home' after a 40 year break. He is also the Chairman of the recently-formed Scarborough Museums Trust, which in May 2008 reopened the totally redesigned Rotunda Museum as the William Smith Museum of Geology.

Research Interests:

• Late Jurassic to early Cretaceous global biogeography, palaeogeography, sea levels and climate.
• Early Cretaceous ammonites.
• Geology of the Yorkshire Coast.

The research has involved collaboration with numerous academic and industrial colleagues, especially in Argentina, France, Germany, Georgia, Spain and the UK. Extensive field work in Argentina, Europe, the Arctic (Spitsbergen) and the former Soviet Union has been supported by grants from the Royal Society, the British Council, CONICET (Argentina), the Leverhulme Trust, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the USSR Academy of Sciences, various oil companies, Cambridge Spitsbergen Expeditions and Gearhart Geodata.

Honours

• 2007 Honorary Professor, University of Hull
• 2005 Honorary Member of the Asociacion Geologica Argentina
• 1994 John Phillips Medal of the Yorkshire Geological Society

Current/Recent International AND National Activities

International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)

• Chair of the International Subcommission on Cretaceous Stratigraphy 1994-2004 (Secretary 1983-1994).
• Chair of the Working Group on the Barremian Stage 1993-present.

International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP)

• British National Correspondent for Project 362: Tethyan and Boreal Cretaceous 1998-2002.

Geological Society

• Chair of Stratigraphy Commission 1995-2001, member 1995-present.
• Council Member 1997-2000

Yorkshire Geological Society

• President 2003-2004
• Council 2003-present
• Editor/Editorial Board 1975-1979, 1984-present

• Editorial Board2004-present

Recent Publications:

Books

• BRENCHLEY, P.J. & RAWSON, P.F. (eds) 2006. The Geology of England and Wales (2^nd edition). Geological Society, London, 592 pp.
• RAWSON, P.F. et al. 2002. Stratigraphical Procedure. Geological Society, Professional Handbook, 57pp.
• CULVER, S.J. & RAWSON, P.F. (eds) 2000. Biotic Response to Global Change. The last 145 million years. Cambridge University Press, xiii + 501 pp. [reprinted as a paperback 2006]
• RAWSON, P. F. & WRIGHT, J. K. 2000. The Yorkshire Coast (3rd, revised edition). Geologists' Association Guide no. 34, 130 pp.

Papers / Chapters in Books

• GIBBARD, P.L., SMITH, A.G., ZALASIEWICZ, J.A., BARRY, T.L., CANTRILL, D., COE, A.L., COPE, J.C.W., GALE, A.S., GREGORY, F.J., POWELL, J.H., RAWSON, P.F., STONE, P. & WATERS, C.N. 2005. What status for the Quaternary? Boreas 34, 1-6.
• ALSEN, P. & RAWSON, P.F. 2005. The Early Valanginian (Early Cretaceous) ammonite Delphinites (Pseudogarnieria) from North-East Greenland. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Denmark 52, 201-212.
• AGUIRRE-URRETA, M.B., RAWSON, P.F., CONCHEYRO, A.G., BOWN, P.R. & OTTONE, E.G. 2005. Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian-Aptian) biostratigraphy of the Neuquén Basin. In Veiga et al. eds) The Neuquén Basin, Argentina: A Case Study in Sequence Stratigraphy and Basin Dynamics. Geological Society, London, Special Publication 252, 57-81.
• BRENCHLEY, P.J. & RAWSON, P.F. 2006. England and Wales through geological time. Pp. 1-8 in Brenchley, P.J. & Rawson, P.F. (eds) The Geology of England and Wales (2^nd edition). Geological Society, London.
• RAWSON, P.F. 2006.Cretaceous: sea levels peak as the North Atlantic opens. Pp. 365-393 in Brenchley, P.J. & Rawson, P.F. (eds) The Geology of England and Wales (2^nd edition). Geological Society, London.
• RAWSON, P.F. 2007. Global relationships of Argentine (Neuquén Basin) Early Cretaceous ammonite faunas. Geological Journal 42, 175-183.
• AGUIRRE-URRETA, M.B., MOURGUES, F.A., RAWSON, P.F., BULOT, L.G. & JAILLARD, E. 2007. The Lower Cretaceous Chañarcillo and Neuquén Andean basin ammonoid biostratigraphy and correlations. Geological Journal 42, 143-173.
• ZALASIEWICZ, J., WILLIAMS, M., SMITH, A., BARRY, T.L., COE, A.L., BOWN, P.R., BRENCHLEY, P., CANTRILL, D., GALE, A., GIBBARD, P., GREGORY, J., HOUNSLOW, M.W., KERR, A.C., PEARSON, P., KNOX, R., POWELL, J., WATERS, C., MARSHALL, J., OATES, M., RAWSON, P.F. & STONE, P. 2008. Are we now living in the Anthropocene? GSA Today, 18 (2),4-8.