Peter Barrett



Peter Barrett is Professor of Geology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand,  and was founding director of the Antarctic Research Centre there (1972-2007). He has degrees from University of Auckland (M Sc 1963) and Ohio State University (PhD 1968) during which he discovered the first land vertebrate on the Antarctic continent. On returning to New Zealand he took over the University's Antarctic programme, and in 1972 sailed on the Glomar Challenger to drill the Antarctic continental shelf for its history of the ice sheet. Since then Peter has led several further projects to drill the Antarctic margin for understanding the history and behaviour of the ice sheet since its inception around 34 million years ago, providing some perspective on its likely behaviour in the face of projected future global warming. This work and his promotion of the integration of geological data and modelling in the Antarctic science community has led to several awards including the SCAR President's Medal in 2006.