Witze, Hill win AGU Journalism Awards

Alexandra Witze, science writer for The Dallas Morning News, and Richard L. Hill, science reporter for The Oregonian, have won the American Geophysical Union's 2000 awards for science journalism.Witze won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Writing—Features for her story, “Paradise Submerged,” which was published on July 12, 1999. The award was established in 1989 in honor of its first recipient, Walter Sullivan, science writer of The New York Times. The “paradise” of the title is the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean, which was dry land some 100 million years ago, but is now, except for a few small islands, completely submerged. The plateau was explored under the auspices of the Ocean Drilling Program, which formed the basis of Witze's story. It may be seen at http://dallasnews.com/science/70455_witzestory.html.