Greg Moore honored with Geological Society of Japan Award

Greg Moore

Gregory Moore, Emeritus Professor in the SOEST Department of Earth Sciences, was honored  by the Geological Society of Japan as the first recipient of the Akiho Miyashiro Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to our understanding of the geological structures and tectonics in the Nankai Trough and the training of researchers.

“I am truly honored to have received this prestigious award because so many of my Japanese colleagues joined together to nominate me,” said Moore. “I have greatly enjoyed my 40 years of collaborative work with them and look forward to many more future projects.”

For over 45 years, Moore has been mapping the structure and stratigraphy of deep sea trenches, subduction zones, mud volcanoes around the world, including around Japan, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Taiwan, Oregon in North America, Barbados, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. He was a UH Mānoa professor from 1989 to 2020 and was previously an associate professor at the University of Tulsa and assistant research geologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Moore began a decades-long investigation of the Nankai Trough subduction zone in 1987 on a joint cruise with colleagues from Tokyo University and the University of Texas and collaborative analyses of seismic data collected by Japanese colleagues. 

One of the most noteworthy research results is the Japan-US joint study of the structure of the Nankai Trough accretionary prism, based on the analysis of core samples from seafloor drilling by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and other seafloor drilling projects. Moore’s analysis of these samples clearly illustrated the structure of the modern accretionary prism, including the 3D geological structure of the plate boundary and faults at the subducting plate and the seafloor, for the first time in the world. 

In the award citation, the Geological Society of Japan noted, “Professor Moore has demonstrated leadership in collaborative research with many Japanese researchers in the study of the geological structure and tectonics of convergent boundaries by depicting the detailed geological structure of modern accretionary prisms around the Nankai Trough. He has also contributed to the training of young Japanese researchers and played an important role in the international recognition of research on modern accretionary prisms in Japan.”

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