Honorary Professor Gordon Lister qualified as a geologist in 1969 (BSc, UQ), and in 1970 (BSc Hons, JCU) and gained a PhD in Geophysics at ANU in 1975. His interest has always been the genesis of mountains, and his research has led him there, on many continents. He was awarded the Mawson Medal by the Australian Academy of Science in 2012. He has published on theories of fabric and microstructure evolution, the nature and origin of metamorphic core complexes, extensional tectonics and the evolution of passive margins, the nature and origin of tectonic mode switches, and on the deep workings of the collisions that make mountains. More recently, in the TEAR project (Tectonics, Exploration, Architecture and Resources) he has been exploring the links between giant earthquakes and giant orebodies, which is one of the stranger aspects of “How the Earth Works”.