Professor Larry Brown was selected as a 2020 AGU Union Fellow

Larry Brown

Larry Brown, Sidney Kaufman Professor in Geosciences in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was selected as a 2020 AGU Union Fellow. The AGU Union Fellowship is a prestigious honor, one for which only .1% of AGU membership are selected each year.

AGU Fellows have made exceptional contributions to the Earth and space sciences community through breakthrough, discovery, or innovation in their disciplines.  AGU Fellows serve as global leaders and experts who have propelled the understanding of geosciences.

Brown's primary research interest is the application of multichannel seismic reflection methods to the exploration of the continental lithosphere. Among his more notable contributions to geoscience research was his role in the  Consortium for Continental Reflection Profiling (COCORP) project, the first national program for exploring the continental crust with seismic reflection technology. 

The consortium's work in the 1970s and '80s led to major advances in scientific understanding of the structure and formation of the continent of the U.S. and spurred deep seismic exploration programs in more than 20 countries.

Brown was also a principal investigator in a number of major collaborative international seismic initiatives, including Project INDEPTH (Tibet), URSEIS (Russia), SEA-CALIPSO (Montserrat), TAIGER (Taiwan), and PUNA (South America). He continues to be an international advisor to the Chinese SINOPROBE project. 

Brown’s recent work has focused on the application of seismic interferometry to seismic body waves, imaging of crustal structure using microearthquake sources, and 4D seismic monitoring of deep tectonic processes. In addition to his work in seismology, Brown has collaborated with Cornell archeologists to carry out Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys in support of field projects in Rome, Pompeii, Honduras, and New York. He is currently working with community leaders and Cornell faculty in  Africana Studies and Archaeology in a new study of the Underground Railroad in Ithaca as part of Engaged Cornell. 

During his time at Cornell, Brown has also become involved in a number of campus-wide initiatives including Earth Source Heat at Cornell, where he is a campus partner. Earth Source Heat is an enhanced geothermal system that will use earth’s internal heat to warm the Ithaca campus. The project holds the potential for a research-driven solution that, if proven viable, could lead to a new sustainable, scalable solution to heating challenges throughout New York state and across the globe.

Brown is a Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, a hub of collaborative sustainability research that forges vital connections among researchers, students, staff, and external partners. 

In addition to AGU, Brown is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the  Seismological Society of America.

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