E-Mail IMAGE: UT Jackson School of Geosciences Professor Ian Dalziel, who won the Penrose Medal, at South Georgia island in the far south Atlantic Ocean view more Credit: Ian Dalziel Ian W.D. Dalziel, a professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the Geological Society of America's Penrose Medal for pioneering discoveries about Earth's ancient geography and its past supercontinents. Established in 1927, the Penrose Medal is widely considered to be geology's most prestigious career award. In a letter, GSA Past-President Doug Walker said that Dalziel's scientific contributions marked a major advance in the science of geology and shed new light on key periods in our planet's distant past, such as the "Snowball Earth" and the "Cambrian Explosion" of multicellular life.