Gillian Foulger

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Gillian Rose Foulger (born 1952) is a British geologist and professor of Geophysics at Durham University. She is a leading voice in the global debate over whether deep mantle “plumes” cause hotspot volcanism.

Education and early work: She studied at the University of Cambridge, earning a BA in Natural Sciences in 1974 and an MA in 1978. She completed her PhD at Durham University in 1985, with a thesis on seismological studies at Hengill geothermal area in southwestern Iceland (1984), supervised by Páll Einarsson.

Career and roles: Foulger is a Managing Editor of Earth-Science Reviews. She was awarded the Price Medal in 2005.

Research and ideas: She argues against the mantle plume hypothesis, stating there is no chemical or isotopic data that require deep-plume sources and that seismic tomography has not produced clear evidence of plumes. She suggests that the largest flood basalts could be explained by rapidly draining reservoirs of molten rock rather than plumes. Her work supports an alternative model in which volcanic activity is a passive response to the stretching of lithospheric plates, such as in rift valleys, allowing melt to rise from shallow depths. Her ideas contribute to understanding hotspots like Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone.

Coso project: From 1996 to 2004, Foulger and colleagues used data from about 80,000 earthquakes in the Coso Geothermal Field in California to study local seismic structure and improve energy production strategies. The field generates approximately 250 megawatts of electricity.

Icelandia idea: In June 2021, her team proposed a submerged continent stretching from Greenland to Europe, named Icelandia. The concept is discussed in a chapter in a book about new ideas in Earth science.

Memberships: She is a fellow or member of several scientific societies, including the Icelandic National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Astronomical Society, and is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and the International Association of Geodesy.