Bureau Honors Authors of Exceptional Research Publications

The Bureau of Economic Geology recently held a celebratory dinner and awards ceremony to honor first authors and co-authors of exceptional research papers published during the previous year. The festive event was hosted by Bureau Director Lorena Moscardelli, and was well attended by honorees and their families and guests.

There were 111 peer-reviewed Bureau papers published in 2025, with a total of 71 first author publications. Eight of those papers were published by first-time first authors.

The event also served as the stage to announce the winners of the annual Tinker Family BEG Publication Award, presented to Bureau authors who published work that creates exceptional impact in the field or otherwise significantly benefits the Bureau of Economic Geology scientific community. The Bureau Publications Council solicits nominations for the Award in early spring, and, by majority vote, makes a recommendation for the winner to the Director.

The second runner-up for the Award was Abouzar Mirzaei-Paiaman for "Formate-alternating-gas injection method using aqueous formate solution and CO₂ for optimizing oil recovery, carbon sequestration, and storage security." Award first runner-up was Robert G. Loucks for "Multiscale reservoir characterization and analysis of gravity-flow slope deposits in the Early Permian Leonardian Third Bone Spring Sandstone and Guadalupian Upper Avalon Shale of the eastern Delaware Basin, U.S.A."

The dinner culminated with the announcement that the 2026 winner of the Tinker Family BEG Publication Award is James Thompson for "The use of UAV-based visible and multispectral thermal infrared data for active volcano monitoring and analysis: test of a low-cost solution applied to the 2022 Meradalir eruption."

Please join all of us at the Bureau in congratulating these distinguished authors!