Penrose Medal winners

William Maurice "Doc" Ewing (May 12, 1906 – May 4, 1974) was an American geophysicist and oceanographer.Ewing has been described as a pioneering geophysicist who worked on the research of seismic reflection and refraction in ocean basins, ocean bottom photography, submarine sound transmission (including the SOFAR channel), deep sea core samples of the ocean bottom, theory and observation of earthquake surface waves, fluidity of the Earth's core, generation and propagation of microseisms, submarine explosion seismology, marine gravity surveys, bathymetry and sedimentation, natural radioactivity of ocean waters and sediments, study of abyssal plains and submarine canyons.

Paul Frédéric Joseph Fourmarier (1877—1970) was a Belgian geologist and specialist in tectonics and stratigraphy, after whom the Fourmarierite mineral is named.Fourmarier was born in La Hulpe, Province of Brabant, Belgium and studied at the University of Liège, graduating in 1899. He became a professor of geology at the university in 1920.He won the Wollaston Medal in 1957 and the Penrose Gold Medal in 1952.

Robert Minard Garrels (August 24, 1916 – March 8, 1988) was an American geochemist. Garrels applied experimental physical chemistry data and techniques to geology and geochemistry problems. The book Solutions, Minerals, and Equilibria co-authored in 1965 by Garrels and Charles L. Christ revolutionized aqueous geochemistry.
Garrels earned a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Michigan in 1937. He went on to earn an M.S. degree from Northwestern University in 1939, his thesis work was on iron ores of Newfoundland in 1938. His Ph.D. was awarded in 1941 based on lab studies of complex formation between lead and chloride ions in aqueous solution.

Antoine François Alfred Lacroix (4 February 1863 – 12 March 1948) was a French mineralogist and geologist. He was born in Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire.