Skip Palenik Receives the Raymond Murray Award

On Wednesday, May 21st, 2025, the International Union of Geological Sciences – Initiative on Forensic Geology awarded the Raymond Murray Award to Microtrace founder Skip Palenik. The reward is presented “in recognition of distinguished international contribution to forensic geology.”

Over the years, Skip has published extensively on forensic approaches to geological evidence, including a chapter on heavy mineral analysis in forensic soil samples and the first article on geographic sourcing of dust samples. Skip has worked on numerous high profile cases involving the analysis of forensic soil samples and the task of geolocation (identifying a specific location or activity based on the composition of a dust or soil sample). One famous case involved Skip’s geolocation of a sand that thieves had used as a substitute for a silver shipment. Read more about that case here.

In 2020, the IUGS-IFG Award for Forensic Geology was renamed the IUGS-IFG Raymond Murray Award. The IUGS-IFG international conference was held in Rome, Italy from May 21st to 23rd, 2025 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the organization.

Skip with Ray Murray at one of his many visits to Microtrace over the years.

International Union of Geological Sciences

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) was founded in 1961. With 121 national members, representing over a million geoscientists, it is one of the World’s largest scientific organizations.

It encourages international co-operation and participation in the Earth Sciences in relation to human welfare and is a member of the International Science Council (ISC).

​Membership is open to countries or defined regions. IUGS believes that it is of mutual benefit to establish close links with other organizations engaged in geoscience activities, especially the organizations whose work relates to some of the major activities of IUGS.

Initiative on Forensic Geology

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Initiative on Forensic Geology (IFG) was established at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France on 22 February 2011. The aim of the IUGS-IFG is, ‘to develop forensic geology internationally and promote its applications’.

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