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AGU is a participant in a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded project called Advancing Ways of Awarding Recognition in Disciplinary Societies (AWARDS), which seeks to examine whether gender bias affects selection of recipients of society awards. AGU is interested in learning why there is a higher proportion of female recipients of service and education awards over the past 2 decades. Combined with a lower rate of receipt of research awards, these results suggest that implicit (subconscious) bias in favor of male candidates still influences awardee selection. Six other professional societies (American Chemical Society, American Mathematical Society, American Society of Anesthesiologists, Mathematical Association of America, Society for Neuroscience, and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) are participating in the project. Volunteers from each participant society attended an Association for Women in Science (AWIS)–sponsored workshop in May 2010 to examine data and review literature on best practices for fair selection of society awardees. A draft proposal for implementing these practices will be brought before the AGU Council and the Honors and Recognition Committee at their upcoming meetings.

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The early opening of the South Atlantic ocean along the eastern Romanche Fracture Zone, including an initial phase of transform faulting and pull-apart basin formation, followed by the generation of a seafloor spreading center, was investigated during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 159 to the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana continental margin. Clay minerals in the <0.5-µm fraction of tectonically disturbed sediment recovered during this leg were analyzed by X-ray diffraction to determine the extent of thermal diagenesis caused by the passing of the South Atlantic spreading center along this transform margin, and to date the passing. Results from Sites 959-961 reveal mild thermal alteration of clays, to paleotemperatures of 120°-170°C, in older, mostly undated sediment, in response to an elevated paleogeothermal gradient, as indicated by the absence of randomly interstratified illite/smectite group clays (R = 0 I/S clay), and the presence of dominant regularly interstratified (R = 1) I/S clay. Thermally altered sediment at these sites underlie unaltered sediment with likely erosional contacts. Based on a date of nannofossil biozone CC9b for the oldest unaltered sediment at Site 959, the thermal event there must have been pre-CC9b. At Site 962, drilled on a minor marginal ridge to the west of Sites 959-961, heat has altered clay in basal sediment to R = 1 I/S, and the transition uphole to thermally unaltered sediment, bearing R = 0 I/S clay, was recovered over a 175-m-thick interval, indicating the thermal event was intense but short-lived. Near-vertical beds at the top of the mid-Cretaceous section were not heated, while folded and unfolded sediments, 175 m deeper, were heated. Based on estimations of paleotemperatures of these sediments, a paleogeothermal gradient of near 350°C/km would be required to form the observed clay mineral assemblages. This heating must postdate the age of the sediments, which is latest Albian-Cenomanian (nannofossil biozone CC9b). Thus, the spreading center passed between Sites 959/960 and Site 962 sometime during the latest Albian-Cenomanian.

Nearly 50 geo‐ and social scientists recently gathered in Washington, D.C., for a workshop on women in the geosciences. The two‐fold purpose was to compile data on the status of women in the geosciences and to arrive at a consensus on strategies to increase the proportion of women and their diversity in the field. Participants spanned 4 decades of experience, including both genders, and represented many types of academic institutions, from high school to private, bachelors degree‐granting colleges to public and private Research I institutions. Two social scientists who specialize in women‐in‐science issues also participated.

Abstract. Honours and awards bestowed by professional societies recognize and reward members who have advanced the goals and values of that society. All too often, however, awards reflect a small network of people who know about the awards and participate in the process. This network works wonderfully for the people lucky enough to be in it, but typically neglects the full range and breadth of scholarship and service within the society. We represent a combined 15+ years' experience on the honours' committee for a large professional society (the American Geophysical Union) and here offer strategies to increase the representation of honourees. Women represented less than 20 % of awardees when we first became committee members in 2008; women represented 50 % of awardees in 2019. There is still much to do to ensure that members from other typically under-represented groups (non-US members, members from under-represented races/ethnicities) are truly represented and honoured for outstanding science and service. We recommend forming canvassing committees that will scour the literature, conferences, and membership lists for appropriate and otherwise overlooked nominees; providing implicit bias training to selection committees; and ensuring selection committees focus on the criteria for the award rather than non-pertinent, often personal, information, as well as additional strategies that allow us to recognize our worthy colleagues.