Peter Molnar (August 25, 1943 – June 23, 2022) was a professor in Geological Sciences at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

. His research focused on aspects of how

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

s form and continental

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years ...

deforms. Molnar was born August 25, 1943, in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Oberlin College in 1965 and his Ph.D. in seismology from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in 1970. He was a winner of the

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Fo ...

and a fellow of the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's ...

. He won the Crafoord Prize in 2014 for discovering "the driving forces behind plate motions and the place of continents in the

plate tectonic Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large t ...

model of Earth's evolution. Innovatively combining geological and geophysical methods of inquiry with satellite measurements and modelling, the Laureate has also paved the way to a new understanding of the formation of mountain ranges and their role in global tectonics."

References

External links

Webpage
* http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/faculty/molnar.htm * http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/peter-molnar-takes-down-popular-scientific-theory-john-carlson-lecture-1029 1943 births 2022 deaths American geophysicists Columbia University alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Scientists from Pittsburgh 20th-century American geologists 21st-century American geologists {{US-geologist-stub