| Authorised form of name | Turner; Grenville (1936 - 2024); geochemist |
| Dates | 1936 - 2024 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Todmorden, Upper Calder Valley, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England |
| Date of birth | 01/11/1936 |
| Place of death | Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England |
| Date of death | 22/08/2024 |
| Occupation | Geochemist |
| Research field | Cosmology |
| Isotope geochemistry |
| Physics |
| Astronomy |
| Materials Science |
| Geochemistry |
| Activity | Education:
Todmorden Grammar School; St. John's College, Cambridge (MA); Balliol College, Oxford DPhil (1962).
Career:
Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley (1962–64); lecturer in physics (1964–74), senior lecturer (1974–79), reader (1979–80), professor (1980–88), University of Sheffield; Research Associate, Caltech (1970-71); Professor of isotope geochemistry, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Manchester (1988-2004); died following dianosis of grade IV astrocytoma in 2022.
Memberships:
Geochemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry 1996
Meteoritical Society 1980
American Geophysical Union 1998
Awards/Medals:
Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society 1999
Urey Medal of the European Association of Geochemistry 2002
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for geophysics 2004 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 20/03/1980 |
| Age at election | 43 |
| RSActivity | Royal Society roles:
Council: 1990-1992
Medals and prizes:
Rumford Medal 1996
Committees and Panels:
Sectional Committee 5: Earth & environmental sciences 2006-2009
Physical Sciences Awards Committee 1998-2001
Sectional Committee 5: Earth & environmental sciences 1994-1997
Research Appointment Panel A(i) 1994-1996 |
| Relationships | Spouse: Kate Morris, English teacher (m. 1961).
Children: Charlotte and Patrick. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN R69654 |
| OtherInfo | Best known for his use of isotopes in the investigation of Solar System history. He invented (with Craig Merrihue) the argon-40/argon-39 method of radioactive dating and pioneered its application to terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples. By this method, Grenville obtained the first precise potassium/argon ages of the Apollo rocks, on which the remarkably complete chrononology of the early events in lunar history has been based, especially the early bombardment and basin formation, and the evolution of mare basalts.
Invented the argon-38/argon-37 method of cosmic ray dating, which provided ages of young impact craters, making the photogeological age scale of lunar surface evolution quantitative. He developed similar methods for combining noble gas and halogen measurements in terrestrial ground waters. Grenville (with John Reynolds) discovered nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies in xenon present in meteoritic nanodiamonds, which predate the formation of the Solar System. He developed a new mass spectrometer based on resonance ionisation and used it to measure iodine-129/iodine-127 ages of primitive meteorites and to discover xenon from extinct plutonium-244 in ancient terrestrial zircons. |
| Source | The Royal Society Fellows Directory, Professor Grenville Turner FRS, [URL: https://royalsociety.org/people/grenville-turner-12442/; last accessed: 19/02/2025]
The Guardian, Grenville Turner Obituary, Mick O'Hare, 20 September 2024, [URL: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/20/grenville-turner-obituary; last accessed: 19/02/2025] |
| Code | NA3934 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1980/35 | Turner, Grenville: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1977 |
| IM/004670 | Turner, Grenville | 1996 |