Gerald R. Dickens  Gerald R. Dickens is Professor of Earth Science at Rice University, and is a researcher into the history of the world’s oceans, with respect to the changing patterns of their geology, chemistry and biology. 'Jerry' Dickens's degrees are a PhD from the University of Michigan in Oceanography (1996), M.S. from the University of Michigan in Oceanography (1993), and a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley 1989. From 2001 to 2005 Dickens was a Member of the Editorial Board of the magazine "Geology", published by the Geological Society of America, and from 2001 to 2004 was an Associate Editor of "Paleoceanography", published by the American Geophysical Union. From December 2005 to December 2009 Dickens was the Editor in Chief of "Paleoceanography". In 2013 he became a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Dickens was Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia from 1997 to 2001. He was appointed an Associate Professor at Rice University in August 2001, becoming a full Professor in June 2008. In 2003 Dickens received the 2002/2003 Distinguished Lecturer Award from the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, and in 2008 the Distinguished Lecturer Award of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). Dickens was interviewed for the BBC's "Horizon" documentary series in 2002 in a programme called 'The Day the Earth Nearly Died'. He was also interviewed on the History Channel's 'Mega Disasters' which focused on eruptions of methane gas deep in the ocean. The one-hour programme aired on October 9 and 10 2008. In the interview Dickens claimed that Methane had been identified as a cause for catastrophic disasters at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 55 million years ago. From 2005 to 2010, he served as Master of Martel College at Rice University. Dickens has authored or co-authored over 90 scientific papers including: