b'PeopleNewsEmeritus Professor Brian Kennett AOAs noted in the last issue of Preview, Emeritus Professor Brian Kennett, was recognised in Australia Day 2019 Honours List for distinguished service to the earth sciences as a leading academic and researcher, particularly in the field of seismology. He was appointed an Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of AustraliaASEG President Dr Marina Costelloe congratulated Professor Kennett on behalf of the ASEG, and invited him to share highlights of his career with ASEG Members via the pages of Preview.This is Brians story.I was born and brought up in South London, England, and in 1996 gained an Open Scholarship to Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge. I studiedBrian Kennett with the former seismic recording drum in foyer of RSES building in July 1989the Natural Sciences Tripos, gaining a first class in Theoretical Physics, and then took the Mathematical Tripos PartMuirhead, we started a programme ofinstruments over large, remote, areas III gaining honours with distinction.deployments of short period seismicof the continent. Much of my personal I carried out my PhD researchinstruments in northern Australiainvolvement was in the tropical north. on theoretical seismology in thedesigned to study the structure of theAs I acquired other responsibilities, Department of Applied Mathematicsupper mantle. My earlier experience inthe leadership of the field program in and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) inwork at sea proved to be useful in copingAustralia, and later Antarctica, was taken Cambridge. In 1974-1975 I spent awith the demands of the Australianover by Research Fellows, notably Anya year at the University of California, Sanoutback. Much of the early work wasReading. The continuing campaign of Diego, USA on a Lindemann Fellowship,carried out from Tennant Creek in theexperiments has seen over 200 broad-working with Professor Freeman Gilbert.Northern Territory, with help from theband sites occupied by 2015, which On my return to Cambridge I had astaff of the Warramunga array operatedfurnish resolution at about 200 km scale short term position in the Departmentby ANU about 35 km out of town. across the whole continent.of Geodesy and Geophysics supportingIn addition, I helped to initiate, with the marine geophysics activity led byIn 1992 we started to work withNick Rawlinson, an ongoing campaign Drummond Matthews. In 1976 I wasportable broad-band seismic recorders,of deployments of shorter-period appointed as a University Lecturerinitially four bought through theinstruments (typically 40 or so at a time) in DAMTP, and for the next 8 years,Major Equipment programme at ANUthat has progressively covered most of combined teaching mathematics withsubsequently expanded to 12. Withsoutheastern Australia. The projects, research in geophysics. the arrival of Rob van der Hilst as acollectively known as WOMBAT, now I arrived in Australia in 1984 as aResearch Fellow, an ambitious planspread well in South Australia and Professorial Fellow at the ResearchSKIPPY for coverage of the AustralianQueensland with also good coverage of School of Earth Sciences at the Australiancontinent in a multi-year campaign withmuch of Tasmania. Support has come National University. My appointment wasa limited set of portable instrumentsfrom a number of sources including to lead the Seismology program, addingwas set in train. From 1993-1996 sevenANU funding, ARC Discovery Grants and theoretical expertise to an activity whichsets of deployments covered mostAuScope infrastructure funds. The station had been largely observational. At theof the continent, although hardwarespacing of 50 km or less provides quite time of my arrival I sketched out a researchproblems began to mount towards thedetailed information on mantle structure, concept of exploiting the regionalend of the coverage. This modest costand through the use of ambient noise earthquakes around Australia to look atexercise provided reconnaissance scalemethods has also provided useful the structure beneath the continent usingcoverage of the 3-D shear wavespeedconstraints on crustal structure.both compressional and shear waves. Itstructures beneath the continent took over 25 years to bring this idea toand surrounding oceans with betterThe style of mobile deployments fruition, but a net result is that we havethan 500 km resolution. Subsequentestablished in Australia with SKIPPY good definition of the 3-dimensionalexperiments built on the results of thehas been very influential, and similar structure beneath the region that hasSKIPPY project, and I designed andprograms have been carried in a number proved valuable in many contexts. led a group of deployments aimed atof areas, e.g., Southern Africa. The project understanding the edges and sutures ofalso was part of the inspiration for the In 1985, with the aid of newcratons particularly in Western Australia.major deployment of the USArrray, instrumentation designed by Dr KThis work involved deployments ofwhich moved up to 400 stations like a APRIL 2019 PREVIEW 14'