Frank H.T. Rhodes is President Emeritus of Cornell University. Winner of the Geological Society’s Bigsby Medal and the Ian Campbell Medal from the Geological Society of America, Rhodes has served as Chairman of the National Science Board, President of the American Philosophical Society, and Chairman of the American Council on Education and also the American Association of Universities. His other books include The Evolution of Life, Geology, Evolution, Fossils, and The Creation of the Future, as well as many articles on geology, higher education, and the history of science.

Richard O. Stone (1920–78) was Chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences, UCLA. A past member of several honorary societies, Dr Stone wrote many technical articles for Geological Society of America, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, and American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.

Bruce D. Malamud is a Reader in Natural and Environmental Hazards at King’s College, London. A past Peace Corps volunteer in Niger and Fulbright Fellow in Argentina, he currently serves as Chief Editor of Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics and President of the Natural Hazards Division of the European Geosciences Union. He has over forty publications in the international scientific literature, including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Geophysical Research, and Earth & Planetary Science Letters.