| Citation | Philip England is distinguished for his fundamental contributions to the deformation of the continental lithosphere. Following the plate tectonics revolution of the late 60's, early analysis of continental deformation was concerned with finding more and smaller plates. England, with others, notably Dan McKenzie, realised that continental deformation more closely resembled a continuous medium as a thin sheet of non-linear viscous fluid, especially as applied to the Himalayan/Tibet zone. England's work is characterised by inceptive rheological model building of the kinematics and dynamics of deforming continental zones, the analysis and synthesis of geophysical data in these zones; and more recently, elegantly designed and performed experiments on continental plate boundary zone deformations in Greece and New Zealand. His approach, methods, and conclusions are profoundly clever, his work is central to understanding continental deformation and he is, probably, the most original, innovative and productive researcher in the world on bulk continental deformation. A further important strand of England's work is in the burial/exhumation pressure/temperature time paths of high pressure metamorphic rocks in the deeply eroded cores of orogenic belts. This work involved the analysis of stress at deep levels, where it is impossible to measure deviatoric stress but possible to infer stress magnitude by relating temperature rise resulting from dissipation to surface heat flux and metamorphic gradients. England's work on the evolution of mountain belts has led him also into study of the interaction of tectonics and climate; especially orographic development and the Indian monsoon. England's fundamental contribution to tectonics are typified by an eclectic understanding of data and ideas and rigorous quantitative data acquisition and handling, and model building. |