Lauri J. J Pesonen
Lauri J. Pesonen is an Emeritus Professor of solid earth geophysics at Physics Department
of University of Helsinki. He is a graduate at the Helsinki University of Technology and
obtained PhD in 1978 at the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Finnish Academy
of Science and Letters and has been the president of the Geophysical Society of Finland,
and the Chair of Divison III (Paleomagnetism) of IUGG/IAGA during 1993_x0001_97. The IUA AU:1
nominated the asteroid 1979A as “Pesonen” according to his activities in studies of super_x0002_continents and meteorite impacts. He received the Knight Medal of the First Class Finnish
Lion in 1995. Lauri is author or coauthor of over 150 peer-reviewed articles. He initiated the
Nordic Paleomagnetism Workshops and was a key-person in the developments of the
Precambrian (PALEOMAGIA) and Holocene (GEOMAGIA) paleomagnetic databases. Lauri
organized the International Supercontinent Symposium in 2012 in Helsinki. He has had academic (teaching and
research) positions in Canada, Estonia, Norway, Germany, India, and Colombia. His research topics spread from
supercontinents to the Earth’s ancient magnetic field, impact structures, meteorite petrophysics, archeomagnet_x0002_ism, environmental magnetism, and biomagnetism. He has built three paleomagnetism laboratories, the first one
at the Geological Survey of Finland, the second at the University of Helsinki, the third in Tarto University,
Estonia. His latest interests include constructions of exhibitions of meteorites and impactites at several Finnish
museums.
Affiliations and expertise
Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland