Rate My Professor Tanya Atwater

Atwater's research focuses on tectonics, encompassing sea floor spreading processes, propagating rifts, oceanic crust formation, and the plate tectonic history of western North America, particularly the San Andreas fault system. She pioneered quantitative applications of plate tectonics to continental geology using marine magnetic anomalies and Deep Sea Drilling Project data. Key publications include "Implications of Plate Tectonics for the Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of Western North America" (1970, GSA Bulletin), "Origin of Fracture Zone Topography" (1969, Nature, with H. W. Menard), and "Changes in Direction of Sea Floor Spreading" (1968, Nature, with H. W. Menard). Her contributions have profoundly influenced understanding of global tectonic theory and land features like the San Andreas Fault and Cascadia volcanic arc. Atwater has earned the Penrose Medal (2019, Geological Society of America), Wollaston Medal (2022, Geological Society of London), election to the National Academy of Sciences (1997), Leopold von Buch Medal (Germany), NSF Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1980), and fellowships in the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America. She directs the Educational Multi-Media Visualization Center at UCSB, creating geological animations for education, and delivers public lectures, teacher workshops, and field trips.