Lyell Medal

item details

NameLyell Medal

ProductionLeonard Wyon; engraver; 1877; London

Classificationmedals

Materialsbronze

DimensionsOverall: 6mm (width), 60mm (height), 60mm (diameter)

Registration NumberNU006503

Credit lineGift of the family of Sir James Hector, 1937

Overview

This Lyell Medal is struck in bronze. The obverse side has a profile portrait of Sir Charles Lyell and the date 1873. The reverse side depicts a view of the Roman pillars of Serapis at Pozzuoli near Naples, Italy. This image was used as the frontispiece to Lyell's book The Principles of Geology because the marine borings on the pillars were evidence of change in sea levels.

The Lyell Medal
Charles Lyell (1797-1875), one of the founding fathers of modern geology, established the Lyell Medal in his will. It is awarded annually by the Geological Society of London for 'significant contributions to science by means of a substantial body of research'.

James Hector
The Lyell Medal is extremely highly regarded. It was first awarded in 1876, and it is a measure of James Hector's international standing as a geologist that he was its second recipient, in 1877.

Contribution to geology
Lyell's book The Principles of Geology (published in two volumes in 1830 and 1832) outlined his scheme of classifying geological strata by age. The names he proposed - Eocene (dawn of recent), Miocene (less of recent), and Pliocene (more of recent) are still in universal use. The Principles of Geology and other books he wrote became fundamental texts for geologists all over the world.