James C. Briden

James Christopher Briden is a British geophysicist, known for his work on paleoclimate and paleomagnetism. He was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1984.

Education Briden attended the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe from 1949 to 1957 and won a State Scholarship in Mathematics to St Catherine's College, Oxford. At school he read Arthur Holmes’ principles of physical geology, and became interested in the intersection of geology and physics. Briden was an undergraduate in Oxford. Following a lecture by Patrick Blackett on paleomagnetism and continental drift, Briden was inspired to undertake a PhD in paleomagnetism at the Australian National University to work with Ted Irving. This worked involved the documentation of 'polar wander paths' for the continents of Gondwaland, through the analysis of their ancient magnetic signatures. He completed his PhD thesis on paleolatitudes and paleomagnetic studies in 1964.

Career From Australia, Briden moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where he became interested in the geological structure and history of Africa. From there, Briden went to the University of Leeds, which had a strong African geology research group led by Robert Shackleton. and on plate movement and continental magmatism in Africa. He also began to use paleomagnetic techniques in younger rocks to look at the cooling, uplift and erosion histories of the Caledonian mountains. and was awarded the Murchison Medal in 1984 in recognition of his work on paleomagnetism. In this role, he was a member of the board of the British Geological Survey from 1989 to 1994. In 1996, he was appointed director of the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford, and contributed to contemporary discussions around climate change. Briden was professor of environmental studies in Oxford and fellow of Linacre College from 1997 until his retirement in 2003.