University Of Toronto Professor Wins Top Canadian Research Award

At the forefront of geophysical research seeking to better understand our planet

Ottawa, Ontario, March 5, 2002 – For the past 15 years, Jerry Mitrovica has been shaking up how we see the Earth. The University of Toronto geophysicist has been at the forefront of global research seeking to better understand our planet not as a static ball, but as a dynamic interplay between atmosphere, water, continents and the deep Earth.

It's world-leading research for which Dr. Mitrovica is being awarded a 2002 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Steacie Fellowship – one of Canada's premier science and engineering prizes.

The award is one of six announced today by Maurizio Bevilacqua, the Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development, on behalf of Allan Rock, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for NSERC, and by Dr. Tom Brzustowski, President of NSERC.

"These winners will help Canada become one of the top five countries in the world for research and development – attracting and retaining the best and brightest minds," said Minister Rock. "This is an important part of making Canada more innovative and competitive in the global economy."

"NSERC Steacie Fellowships are awarded to Canada's most outstanding researchers," said Secretary of State Bevilacqua. "The winners continue to make a mark for themselves and for Canada on the international research scene. The NSERC Steacie will give them the opportunity and resources to develop their ideas to a new level of excellence."

In the late 1980s, when Dr. Mitrovica began his research career, geophysicists were increasingly adapting an Earth systems approach to their subject as a result of one of the last century's greatest scientific insights: plate tectonics. The understanding that the Earth's crust is a series of slowly moving rigid segments, or plates, on a viscous middle-layer, was synthesized by University of Toronto geophysicist Tuzo Wilson in the 1960s.

"While in the 1970s we knew some of the geological implications of plate tectonics, we didn't know how it connected to long-term climate or sea level changes," says Dr. Mitrovica, now the J. Tuzo Wilson professor of geophysics at the U of T.

In 1989, Dr. Mitrovica, then a doctoral student, rocked the plate tectonics community by demonstrating – with colleagues Dr. Chris Beaumont of Dalhousie University and Gary Jarvis of York University – that the same process moving continents sideways, was also moving them up and down.

Vertical plate tectonics, as it's been dubbed, is crucial to understanding ancient sea level changes.

In their seminal journal article, the researchers showed that the great interior seaway that covered the North American interior from 80 to 50 million years ago was the result of the continent being pulled down by an oceanic plate subduction zone at the continent's western edge. Like two rafts attached side by side, when one is pulled down, the other also tilts down, he notes.

In a highly publicized article in Nature last year, Dr. Mitrovica extended this research into plate tectonics as well as work into ice age-related sea level changes to redefine how current sea level changes are interpreted. Prior to this article, the common belief was that sea level changes due to the melting of polar ice sheets follow a 'global bathtub' model - rising and falling uniformly around the globe, says Dr. Mitrovica.

Re-applying a 19th century idea, Dr. Mitrovica and his colleagues showed that each ice sheet has a distinct "sea level fingerprint." In general, sea levels rise in the opposite hemisphere to the melting ice due to the reduction in the gravitational pull of the ice mass.

"The very idea that sea levels should rise uniformly if the ice sheets are melting is wrong. It's dramatically non-uniform," he says. "If the Greenland ice sheet melted tomorrow, there'd be flooding in the southern hemisphere but a sea level fall in Scotland and Newfoundland."

Dr. Mitrovica is continuing his research into the Earth's subtle interconnections, and with California Institute of Technology's Dr. Jeroen Tromp, U of T postdoctoral fellow Dr. Konstantin Latychev and others, he is developing a computerized 3-D numerical model of an ice age Earth. This finite element model – in which the Earth is subdivided into a grid with distinct geophysical data for each 50-kilometre surface section – will enable unprecedented analysis of past and future Earth changes.

"We need models that take into account a more complex, realistic Earth," Dr. Mitrovica says.

Contacts:

Dr. Jerry Mitrovica, (416) 978-4946, jxm@physics.utoronto.ca.

Arnet Sheppard, NSERC, (613) 995-5997, axs@nserc.ca.

The Prize

NSERC Steacie Fellowships are awarded to the most outstanding Canadian university scientists or engineers who have earned their doctorate within the last twelve years. Nominations are received by NSERC from universities across Canada and judged by a distinguished panel of independent experts. The award includes a payment to the University of Toronto towards Dr. Mitrovica's salary, and increased research funding from NSERC, freeing him to pursue his research full-time. In addition, for the first time this year, the winning Steacie Fellows have been invited to compete for a special Canada Foundation for Innovation Career Award. The announcement of these awards will be made later.

The five other award winners this year are:

Canada's Innovation Strategy

On February 12, 2002, the Government of Canada launched Canada's Innovation Strategy, two papers that lay out a plan to address skills and innovation challenges for the next decade. The paper released by Minister Rock was entitled Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity. It proposes goals, targets and priorities for Canada over the next decade to: create knowledge and bring ideas to market more quickly; ensure a skilled workforce in the new economy; modernize business and regulatory policies while protecting the public interest; and strengthen communities by supporting innovation at the local level. Today's announcement supports this strategy.

For more information about Canada's Innovation Strategy or to obtain a copy of either Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians or Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity, please call 1-800-CANADA (1-800-622-6232) or visit www.innovationstrategy.gc.ca.