David Headley Green

David Headley Green (29 February 1936 – 6 September 2024) was an Australian geologist and experimental petrologist who studied Earth's mantle, and the formation of magmas. He was director of the Australian National University research school of earth sciences from 1994 to 2001, and received many senior medals and awards for his work. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2006.

Early life Green was born in Launceston, Tasmania, on 29 February 1936. He went to school at Burnie and Hobart High School, before going to university at the University of Tasmania, in Hobart.

Education Green completed a BSc at the University of Tasmania in 1957. He then began work as a geologist with the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources, mapping and studying sequences of igneous rocks in north Queensland and Papua New Guinea from 1957 to 1959. He was awarded an MSc from the University of Tasmania in 1960, and DSc in 1988. In 1958, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition overseas scholarship, and went to the University of Cambridge. There, he completed a PhD in 1962 with a study of the ultramafic rocks of the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, under the supervision of petrologist C.E. Tilley. on the transformation of rocks from basalt to gabbro to eclogite, and on the nature of the upper mantle.

In 2008, when Green was aged 72, a number of his former students, colleagues and collaborators published a collected volume of research papers 'in honour of the work of David Headley Green on the occasion of his 18th birthday, 29 February 2008'; a reference to his leap year birthday.

Selected works Green published more than 220 papers over the course of his research career. 2016 RM Johnston Memorial Medal, Royal Society of Tasmania