SXU's Christopher Chalokwu receives Geoscience Medal from Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society
Saint Xavier University's (SXU) Professor of Geochemistry and Physical Science Christopher I. Chalokwu, Ph.D., FGS, FGSA, is the recipient of the NMGS/MOSUNMOLU/IFATUROTI Medal from the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society. The award ceremony was held in Abuja in March.
According to the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society, "This award is given to any Mining Engineer/Earth Scientist of any nationality who has made consistent and excellent contribution to the general area of Mining and the Geology of the African Continent." The award prize is a gold medal and a plague cast in polished rock/marble.
Prof. Chalokwu was cited for his research on the metamorphism and thermobarometry of the Pan African Domain of Ghana, Togo and Dahomey; the petrology and geochemistry of tin-bearing granites of Nigeria; and magma dynamics of the Freetown layered complex of Sierra Leone using radiogenic and stable isotopes, which lead to the recognition of isotopically distinct magma pulses. Prof. Chalokwu was editor for the journal Africa Geoscience Review and the Journal of African Earth Sciences (Elsevier), and in 1994 was the founder of the Pan African Geology International working group for the Geological Society of America.
Prof. Chalokwu received the Ph.D. in geology and geochemistry from Miami University in 1984. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Miami University, he joined Auburn University in 1985 as a faculty member and rose to the rank of professor of petrology in 1995. He received a U.S. Senior Fulbright Fellowship in 1990 to teach at the University of Ghana, Legon, and conducted research on the Dahomeyide Orogenic Belt with geology faculty and students of that university. From 1994 to 1996, he was an external examiner for the study of the bushveld complex at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He became the founding dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Benedict College in South Carolina in 1996, was vice chancellor at the University of Tennessee before joining Saint Xavier University in 2001 as vice president for Academic Affairs. He is an elected fellow of several scientific societies.