Frank S. Spear

Frank Spear is an American metamorphic petrologist, with particular expertise in the evolution of the Earth’s crust, and the quantification and modelling of pressure, temperature, time and deformation histories of metamorphic rocks. His work has been recognised with many awards, including the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America; the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London, the Walter H. Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union and the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America.

Education Spear studied geology at Amherst College for his bachelors degree, and then moved to the University of California, Los Angeles for his doctoral research. He completed a thesis on the stability of amphiboles under the guidance of petrologist Gary Ernst.

Career After completing his PhD, Spear was a research fellow at the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution, Washington, and then took up a faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. In 1985, Spear moved to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Book Spear is best known for his Big Blue Book on metamorphic phase equilibria, which was first published in 1993 and so-called on account of its colour and size. Murchison Medal, Geological Society of London (2012) Barrow Award, Metamorphic Studies Group, Mineralogical Society of the UK and Ireland (2023) Walter H. Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union (2024) Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America (2026)