The UNM Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences will host two Earth Day lectures by Caswell Silver Distinguished Lecture Marcia McNutt, director, U.S. Geological Survey. The first lecture, titled "Lessons from Japan: Advancing Earthquake Awareness," will be Thursday, April 21 at 3:30 p.m. A reception will be held following the lecture in the Silver Family Geology Museum. On Friday, April 22, McNutt will give a lecture titled, "USGS Science in the Gulf: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill," at 2 p.m. Both lectures will be held in Northrop Hall room 122.

A dynamic speaker and a renowned scientist, she will be talking about two of the most significant geological events in the recent past. As director of the USGS, McNutt is responsible for leading the Nation's largest water, earth, biological science and civilian mapping agency. Its mission is to provide the scientific data that enable decision makers to create sound policies for a changing world.

McNutt previously served as president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), in Moss Landing, Calif. She has participated in 15 major oceanographic expeditions and served as chief scientist on more than half of those voyages. McNutt has published more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her research has ranged from studies of ocean island volcanism in French Polynesia to continental break-up in the Western United States to uplift of the Tibet Plateau.

McNutt is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was awarded by the American Geophysical Union the Macelwane Medal in 1988 for research accomplishments by a young scientist and the Maurice Ewing Medal in 2007 for her significant contributions to deep-sea exploration.

McNutt received a bachelor's in Physics from Colorado College and Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Media contact: Steve Carr (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu