springs, which led to the discovery during the RISE project of the high temperature black smokers, undersea hydrothermal vents. In Atwater's research on propagating rifts near the Galapagos Islands, she discovered that propagating rifts were created when spreading centers along the seafloor were disturbed by tectonic movement or magma and therefore had to change direction to realign. This helped to explain the complex pattern of the seafloor. Atwater is perhaps best known for her work on the plate tectonic history of western North America. She wrote two major research papers outlining the history of plate tectonic evolution of North America and tectonic problems of the San Andreas Fault, which assisted in documenting the history of the San Andreas Fault. She also studied geometric evolution, integrating and comparing the global plate motion records with the regional continental geologic records. She found emerging relationships that revealed the origins of many large-scale geologic features (e.g. Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, Death Valley, Cascade volcanoes, California Coast Ranges). Atwater's research paper, "Implications of Plate Tectonics for the Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of Western North America", established the essential framework for the plate tectonics of western North America. In her work, she explains that approximately 40 million years ago, the Farallon Plate was subducting underneath the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate. The lower half of the Farallon plate was entirely subducted under Southern California and the upper half did not sink, which eventually became known as the Juan de Fuca Plate. Since the southern section of Farallon completely disappeared, the boundary of southern California was now between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The San Andreas Fault is unique because it acts as a major fault line as well as a border between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. She updated this work in 1989. Atwater is interested in communication and education at all levels. She has developed electronic multi-media (Educational Multimedia Visualization Center at UCSB) to enhance geologic visualization and understanding, particularly related to the histories of tectonic plates. Awards and honors 1975, Fellow, American Geophysical Union 1980, AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for top research article in the journal Science 1997, elected to the National Academy of Sciences 2002, National Science Foundation Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. This award, of $300,000 over four years, is given to help and honor distinguished scientists who are working out ways to translate research