Rolf Emmermann Medal
The GFZ's highest award is named after its founding director Rolf Emmermann. A jury of researchers from the GFZ, extended by the Executive Board and the namesake, decides on the awarding of the prize. Before the GFZ was founded, Rolf Emmermann was the scientific director of the Continental Deep Drilling Program of the Federal Republic of Germany. The award has a special connection to this major project, as the medal consists of a three-millimeter-thin slice of rock cut from a core of the KTB pilot borehole. The rock comes from a depth of around three and a half kilometers near Windischeschenbach. Each medal is unique.
Prize winner 2024: Mark D. Zoback
The US geophysicist Mark D. Zoback received the GFZ's highest award in 2024 for his outstanding services to the geosciences and the GFZ. His major contributions to the Continental Deep Drilling Program of the Federal Republic of Germany (KTB) as well as the later foundation of the International Continental Drilling Program ICDP were decisive starting points both in the founding phase and in the early years of the GFZ. Mark D. Zoback taught at Stanford University for several decades and is considered one of the key figures in the field of brittle crust mechanics and scientific drilling worldwide.
corresponding GFZ press release
Prize winner 2022: Michael M. Watkins
The first prize winner was the US geoscientist and research manager Michael M. Watkins. He was honored for his outstanding achievements in the design and development of new methods for obtaining information on climate change and the global water cycle through satellite-based measurements of the Earth's gravitational field. Through his long-term collaboration with the GFZ on the groundbreaking Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), one of the most successful satellite missions of the GFZ and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and its successor mission GRACE Follow-On, Michael M. Watkins has rendered a unique service to the GFZ and the entire scientific community.