“Linceo Member MARCO LIGI (Class of Physical Sciences) passed away on the morning of August 13. We have lost an exceptionally creative individual: an “Earth scientist” who was able to tackle head-on the problems left to us by Alfred Wegener—namely, the causes of continental drift and the formation and evolution of new oceans on Earth. Marco Ligi followed in the footsteps of geologists such as Harry Hess and explored hypotheses such as “seafloor spreading.” He quickly became proficient in the use of bathymetry, seismology, magnetometry, and gravimetry techniques at sea. He worked on the mid-ocean ridges in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans—one of the “drivers” of continental drift and plate tectonics—as well as in the Red Sea.
Marco Ligi, born in 1958, graduated with honors in Geological Sciences from the University of Bologna in 1983. After a year at Rice University (Houston, Texas), Marco became a researcher and later a Research Director at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CNR in Bologna. Despite its reputation for “heroes, saints, and… navigators,” Italy did not at that time possess a research vessel suitable for long ocean expeditions. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 facilitated an agreement between the CNR and the Russian Academy of Sciences for the joint use of the Strakhov, a modern Russian oceanographic vessel built in Finland.
Marco Ligi was one of the key figures in a series of expeditions to study the mid-ocean ridges in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, where new oceanic lithosphere is generated—the “engine” of continental drift. He later worked in the Red Sea, with the aim of studying the transition from a continental rift to an oceanic rift.
Marco published approximately 180 papers, many in journals such as *Nature* and *Science*. In 2016, he was awarded the “Tartufari” International Prize for Geosciences by the Accademia dei Lincei, and in 2023 he was elected to the Accademia dei Lincei. Most recently, he was working on models of chemical exchange between the Earth’s mantle and the ocean, and on the effects of these exchanges on the composition of seawater.
In addition to his scientific achievements, Marco was an exceptionally generous and courteous person. He supervised numerous Earth Sciences students and helped many of his colleagues.
He had many friends, who are now deeply saddened by his untimely passing.”
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