Crafoord Prize for Geosciences: Winners by Year

Award years

• 2026

  • Veerabhadran Ramanathan

    for fundamental contributions to our understanding of how aerosol particles and other climate pollutants influence the atmospheric energy balance and the Earth system.

• 2022

  • Andrew H. Knoll

    for fundamental contributions to our understanding of the first three billion years of life on Earth and life's interactions with the physical environment through time

• 2018

  • Syukuro Manabe, Susan Solomon

    for fundamental contributions to understanding the role of atmospheric trace gases in Earth's climate system

• 2014

  • Peter Molnar

    for his ground-breaking contribution to the understanding of global tectonics, in particular the deformation of continents and the structure and evolution of mountain ranges, as well as the impact of tectonic processes on ocean-atmosphere circulation and climate

• 2010

  • Walter Munk

    for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth's dynamics

• 2006

  • Wallace Smith Broecker

    for his innovative and pioneering research on the operation of the global carbon cycle within the ocean atmosphere-biosphere system, and its interaction with climate

• 2002

  • Dan McKenzie

    for fundamental contributions to the understanding of the dynamics of the lithosphere, particularly plate tectonics, sedimentary basin formation and mantle melting

• 1998

  • Don L. Anderson, Adam M. Dziewonski

    for their fundamental contributions to our knowledge of the structures and processes in the interior of the Earth

• 1995

  • Willi Dansgaard, Nicholas Shackleton

    for their fundamental work on developing and applying isotope geological analysis methods for the study of climatic variations during the Quaternary period

• 1992

  • Adolf Seilacher

    for his innovative research concerning the evolution of life in interaction with the environment as documented in the geological record

• 1989

  • James Van Allen

    for his pioneering exploration of space, in particular the discovery of the energetic particles trapped in the geomagnetic field which forms the radiation belts - the Van Allen belts - around the planet Earth

• 1986

  • Claude Allègre, Gerald J. Wasserburg

    for their pioneering studies of isotope geochemical relations and the geological interpretations that these results permit

• 1983

  • Edward Norton Lorenz, Henry Stommel

    for their fundamental contributions to the field of geophysical hydrodynamics, which in a unique way have contributed to a deeper understanding of the large-scale motions of the atmosphere and the sea