Obituaries
Leslie Owen Kermode
(1932-2002)
Les’s sudden
death on Sunday 27 January 2002 terminates the work of a
highly respected geologist, who had devoted much of his
working life to the study of the geology of the Auckland
urban area. Les Kermode, affectionately known as Sir Les to
his many Geology Club friends, died of heart failure on a
field trip to Rangitoto Island with a staff member of the
Auckland City Council Heritage Department. He was plotting
by GPS potentially significant volcanic features worthy of
preservation. It was not his first heart problem however, as
he had had valve trouble almost exactly ten years ago in
1992.
Les was born in Riverton in the South Island in 1932, the
fourth child in a family of six comprising four girls and
two boys. In his early years he moved frequently around the
country with his parents, who were members of the Salvation
Army. Places of residence included Marton, Pukekohe, Waihi,
New Plymouth and Avondale, where he became one of the
foundation students of Avondale College. From Avondale he
went on to Teachers Training College in 1950 and attended
the University of Auckland, graduating BA in music. He
subsequently taught at primary schools in the Waikato at Te
Rauamoa on the Otorohanga - Kawhia Rd, and at Ngaruawahia,
before returning to Auckland where he resided with his
mother in Otahuhu. From Otahuhu, Les traveled daily to Rua
Potaka Primary school between Panmure and Glen Innes, and to
Otara Intermediate until the end of 1962.
Les developed an interest in rocks and geology while at
Otara Intermediate and used to pop down the road to the New
Zealand Geological Survey District Office at Otara for a
chat and an explanation of his latest finds. One day a job
vacancy developed and Les joined “the Survey” in
February 1963 and remained there until the office was closed
in 1988 (Geological Society of New Zealand Newsletter No 84,
1989) and relocated to Parnell in Auckland city under the
new name of DSIR Geology and Geophysics. His retirement in
1992 (Geological Society of New Zealand Newsletter No 96.
1992) coincided with the disestablishment of the DSIR and of
the short lived DSIR Geology and Geophysics Division, and
subsequent closure of the Auckland District Office
(Geological Society of New Zealand Newsletter No 98,
1992).
Les's early work was varied as the Geological Survey at the
time was in a period of expansion and he came with a variety
of skills. He was keenly interested in tramping, speleology,
and geology, particularly the Auckland volcanics, and in the
preparation of geological maps, and these aspects of his
work continued up to the time of his death For many years he
was the Editor of the New Zealand Speleological Bulletin,
and Chairman of the Auckland Speleo Group. He also played a
major role in the scientific study and mapping of caves and
as a contributor to the New Zealand Caves Atlas. His
favourite caves were those found in the basalt lava flows
around Auckland and he became internationally recognised as
the New Zealand expert on lava caves.
In the days before user pays, Survey geologists assisted in
many economic mineral investigations for local authorities,
Govt. Depts, mining companies, quarrymen, farmers, and the
general public. Thus Les spent some time on Waikato coal
investigations and in drillhole logging, in copper
mineralisation on Coppermine Island in the Hauraki Gulf, and
later on the geology along the route of the gas pipeline
north from New Plymouth, and in the realignment of railway
lines and tunnels on the main trunk line in the King
Country. He also assisted in the compilation and editing of
the handbooks for the 1965 International Symposium on
Volcanology, published as DSIR Information Series volumes
49-51, in the production of the Auckland Institute and
Museum "Science in Auckland" published for the 11th New
Zealand Science Congress, and in the popular "Lava and
Strata: a Guide to the volcanoes and rock formations of
Auckland" published by the Institute of Geological and
Nuclear Sciences in 2000.
Following a brief attachment to the British Geological
Survey, Les returned with many ideas on the need to simplify
geological maps to a form that engineers and planners could
use, at a time when the Auckland Regional Authority Drainage
Board were driving tunnels and trenching for the upgrading
of the Auckland sewer network. Les's geological data were
overprinted onto aerial mosaic maps and published as a
series of nine 1:25 000 geological maps between 1967 and
1986 in the New Zealand Geological Survey Industrial Map
Series. In a later series he played a major role in
preparing rock type maps for the Dept. of Lands and Survey
Inventory Series 1:100 000 maps, compiling at least five of
them and assisting in the completion of others.
As geological data and maps of the Auckland region
accumulated in the Auckland District Office they were
plotted onto field sheets and ultimately compiled by Les and
published in 1992 as geological map 2 in a new series 1:50
000 map and text by the Survey’s successor, the
Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. Entitled
Geology of the Auckland Urban Area this sixty-three page
booklet and map is the principle reference to local geology,
geological resources, geological hazards, and environmental
issues in the district and is the work for which Les will
remain widely respected.
After his retirement, nearly ten years ago, Les became a
Research Associate in geology at Auckland War Memorial
Museum and also loosely attached to the University of
Auckland Geology Department. He provided valuable detailed
advice to the Museum during preparation of its
record-breaking Volcanoes and Giants Exhibition,
particularly in his supervision of construction of a large
replica lava cave. The exercise was repeated a few years
later as he advised on the design and construction of a
replica limestone cave and its speleothems - a feature that
remains a highlight of the natural history galleries.
Les was a co-founder of the Auckland Museum Geology Club
(now Auckland Geology Club section of GSNZ), presenting
their inaugural lecture to 24 enthusiasts on Nov 3rd 1992,
on “Do it yourself geological field trips around
Auckland.” Membership has steadily risen to well over
100, with Les an active committee member throughout this
time. Every year he usually gave at least one evening
lecture and led several field trips - the last a full day
trip in pouring rain around the scoria cone, lava flows and
caves of One Tree Hill (from Mt Eden to Onehunga foreshore,
and Ellerslie racecourse) in October last year. He also led
longer weekend trips to Waitomo and Tongariro National Park.
Those of us fortunate to accompany Sir Les on his myriad of
Auckland field trips came to treasure his vast storehouse of
information, accumulated through a life-time of study. Many
enthusiastic Geoclub members were first introduced to
geology by Les as participants on one of his many University
Extension courses on Auckland’s geology.
Les faithfully supported the Geological Society of New
Zealand from early days - serving at varying times as
Secretary and Chair of the Auckland Branch and as long-timer
member of the Geological Reserves Subcommittee. He gave his
last oral paper at the Hamilton Conference late last year.
Of all the multitude of lectures Les presented, many of us
will always remember his superb, one and three-quarter hour
epic exposition on limestone caves, their formation,
exploration and speleothems, superbly illustrated by several
carousels of fantastic slides.
Les provided informal supervision and advice to dozens of
graduate students, who found that all attempts to obtain
detailed information on Auckland geology led them to Les’s
door. Les was not a prolific writer of scientific papers.
Instead he was a field geologist and mapper, and in later
years particularly, one of New Zealand’s leading
practitioners of geological education for the general
public. Les became widely sort after by many groups to give
lectures and lead field trips - particularly his Auckland
City Council-promoted urban safaris to various Auckland
volcanic cones, and his dozens of trips for scouts, Forest
and Bird, and other groups to explore Stewart’s lava
cave, Three Kings. For over a decade he offered a wide
variety of courses and field trips through the University of
Auckland Continuing Education Programme for hundreds of
participants.
Les’s studies, naturally led him to become the New
Zealand expert on Ferdinand von Hochstetter, the father of
Auckland geology. He gave a plenary lecture on Hochstetter
in New Zealand at the Geological Society Conference in
Napier in 1990, a 1 hour Radio NZ programme on Hochstetter
in NZ, and his translation of Carle’s biography of
Hochstetter was published as a GSNZ Miscellaneous
Publication.
Throughout his career, Les championed the cause of
geological conservation, particularly of caves and Auckland’s
geological heritage. The gazettal of Wiri Lava Cave
Scientific Reserve, signed on Les’s back by the
Minister of Conservation inside the cave in 1998 is a
tribute to his dogged determination to achieve its
protection in the face of almost impossible quarrying odds
over a 25 year period. After his retirement, Les became
increasingly involved in the promotion of Earth Science
Conservation in Auckland, particularly through provisions of
the RMA. Late last year he proudly proclaimed that he was
the only Geological Heritage Consultant in New Zealand. From
1995 onwards he worked with Auckland City Council preparing
geological heritage databases for three city district plans
and had just started compiling data for their Hauraki Gulf
database. He also worked as a consultant for Manukau City
Council and Auckland Regional Council on a number of
conservation, management and Environmental Court issues, and
played a prominent part in the Tamaki River Protection
Society, an area close to his home at Half Moon Bay. At the
time of his death, he was an active member of the Auckland
Conservation Board, having been nominated by GSNZ.
Les was a very private person and observed principles which
he never broke. He neither drank nor smoked but did not
condemn these habits in others, and in the forty years of
his association with geology he was never heard to blaspheme
nor tell a baudy joke. He was not without humour though, at
least in retrospect, as told on the occasion when leaving
work one winter’s evening in the dark and sombre
passageway of the Otara office. As underlings at the time
traveled to work and back on motor scooters or motorbikes,
appropriately dressed in white overalls and helmet, Les, the
last to leave, shuffled down the passageway in the half
light in vivid white up to his neck. His head was enclosed
in a black helmet with the visor down and he was carrying a
skull under his arm to demonstrate something at one of his
talks. Our lady cleaner at the time was approaching from the
other end of the passage and on seeing this apparently
headless apparition shuffling along the passageway in her
direction, let out a shriek, and although Les did not relay
the consequences of the encounter, no-one recalls ever
seeing that particular cleaner again. Following his
retirement, participants on many of his field trips
benefited from his delightful dry sense of humour, although
some of the more gullible members did not always immediately
appreciate his geological teasing.
Les relished a friendly geological debate on the outcrop and
would sometimes offer unusual explanations in the hope of
provoking stimulating discussions. Occasionally Les
overestimated the abilities of the field party he was
leading - like the time he had a large party, running across
the shore platforms to catch the ferry after a
circum-navigation of Motuihe Island. The most infamous
occasion was when he led a group of forty, mostly over-60
year olds, up the overgrown face of an old quarry on the
slopes of Mt Eden. Les never admitted that it was many years
since he was last there and that he got a little lost,
resulting in the near vertical scramble that took over an
hour.
In 1972 Les married Therese (nee Carmine), who he met on a
tramping club trip over Mt Tongariro. They have a married
daughter, Myrneen. He was also a staunch member of St David’s
Presbyterian Church in Khyber Pass Rd, an association he
enjoyed and maintained from his University days.
Although it is with great sadness that we farewell Les, it
is of some solace to know that he departed in a manner that
many of us would envy. The field geologist, more than most,
enjoys the best of both worlds in having an internal library
of books, maps, reports, and publications within four walls,
and that great outdoors’ library of mountains and
plains, of rivers and valleys, of volcanoes and earthquakes.
This is the field geologist’s most cherished library,
and one in which the history of events that has shaped the
land upon which they stand can be read and interpreted in
detail. In such surroundings their eyes, ears, and mind are
attuned to the ever changing forces of nature, and it was
there, at a volcanic outcrop on Rangitoto Island (the icon
of Auckland geology), that Les departed this mortal
world.
Barry Waterhouse and Bruce Hayward
|
Frederick Ernest
Bowen (1921 – 2004)
Fred Bowen died on 26th
September 2004. He was one of a small number of
English geology graduates who joined the New Zealand
Geological Survey after service in the British army, navy or
air force – in Fred’s case the air force -
during the Second World War. Fred arrived in New
Zealand in 1949, going to Invercargill with the difficult
task of bringing to a conclusion the extensive amount of
work already done on the Ohai Coalfield. With this
nearly complete, he was moved to Greymouth in the mid 1950s
for the final stages of the preparation of the Ohai
Coalfield bulletin. General geological work, not only
on the West Coast coalfields, soon gave place to compilation
of the Buller 4-Mile map, published in the same year, 1964,
as the Ohai bulletin.
In the early 1960s he transferred to Auckland, where he
undertook a range of geological work until the inception of
the Mines Department’s Coal Resources Survey in
1975. In this programme, the Geological Survey was
responsible for geological work and drilling in Huntly and
surrounding coalfields. He welcomed and mentored a
number of new young geologists who were appointed to carry
out the work, and ably managed that and relations with Mines’
staff. His experience and knowledge of coalfield
geology, gained many years earlier, proved to be invaluable,
and contributed to the establishment of an effective
team. Fred recognised the importance of new
technologies in coal exploration, and was an early advocate
for the application of geophysical logging of coal
drillholes in New Zealand. He supported the
development of a computer database for exploration data such
as was later used widely in subsequent stages of the Coal
Resources Survey. When he retired at the end of 1980, others
were ready to carry on the coalfield work.
Fred, like others starting work among the few geologists in
New Zealand in the 1950s, necessarily turned his hand to a
wide assortment of tasks, but it is his measured approach to
coal work that will be remembered most by his
colleagues.
Pat Suggate and Steve
Edbrooke
|
Frank Foster
Evison, OBE, FRSNZ (1922-2005)
Frank Evison was born in
Christchurch. He graduated from Victoria University of
Wellington with a BSc in physics in 1944 and an MA with
Honours in mathematics in 1946. During this time he also
served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, becoming
commissioned and the commanding officer of a radar station.
After the war he gained a Diploma from the Imperial College
of Science & Technology and a PhD in geophysics from the
University of London.
On his return to New
Zealand, he worked in exploration geophysics with the
newly-formed Geophysics Division of DSIR. He contributed to
the International Geophysical Year of 1957 by demonstrating,
using surface wave dispersion, that Antarctica was a
continent with a crustal thickness of 30-40 km (Nature 1959,
v.183:306-8). He gained a Nuffield Fellowship in 1957 and a
Fulbright Award in 1963.
In 1960 he became
superintendent of the Seismological Observatory, a section
of Geophysics Division, and in 1964 he became the Division's
director. He was an able administrator. During his
directorship, the New Zealand seismograph network had a
major upgrade, and many new stations were installed. At the
same time he suggested an alternative explanation for
observed palaeomagnetic pole rotations, namely that they
resulted from the slow flow of continental rocks under
gravity (Nature 1962, v.194: 644-46). As a reason for poles'
rotation it may have been wrong, but the idea that
continental rocks could behave as fluids anticipated such
thinking by decades.
An example of Frank's
direct approach to science is given by Evison's Wall. In the
1960s, there were many scientific questions about the newly
important Alpine fault, including whether, like parts of the
San Andreas fault, it was creeping. Frank considered that
periodic surveys to test this would have been very
expensive. Instead, he arranged to have a wall built across
the fault at a location near Maruia. The wall still stands
there, unbroken. The Alpine fault did not creep!
In 1967 he was appointed
inaugural Professor of Geophysics at Victoria University of
Wellington. Four years later he established the Institute of
Geophysics. His vision was for an interdepartmental
Institute with associate members outside the university, to
provide a linkage for all those in Wellington who were
active or interested in geophysics. It remains today as an
area of research strength at Victoria, notwithstanding many
institutional changes over the years.
In the early 1970s Frank
began research into earthquake forecasting which continued
until his death. His interest in earthquake occurrence was
firmly rooted in his view that because earthquakes were a
social threat that caused loss of life and suffering, it was
the job of science to do something to mitigate this threat.
He was persuaded that the Earth signalled its preparation
for large earthquakes. If one could read those signals,
warnings could be given and lives and property saved. The
fact that prediction was difficult, that others tried and
failed, and that yet others were sceptical that it was
possible at all, did not deter him. An idea must be
persisted with until it was proved to be wrong. This
persistence led him into many heated arguments. His
suggestion that earthquake faults may be 'but a gross form
of earthquake damage' (Bull. Seism Soc. Am 1963, v.53:
873-91) enraged his geologist colleagues. Later he admitted
privately: "I was wrong, of course, but I had a lot of fun."
His first interest in
earthquake precursors was in the then newly proposed idea of
dilatancy: that at a critical state of stress cracks would
open in rocks, thereby altering their mechanical properties.
Fluctuations in a precursory swarm could, Frank believed, be
used quantitatively to forecast the subsequent main event
(Nature 1977, v.266: 710-712). At about this time he started
his collaboration on this work with a statistician, David
Rhoades. The partnership continued until the day of his
death.
Prediction of consequences
from a theory is intrinsic in science. He firmly believed
that an assessment of reliability had to be part of any
forecasting method. He was so firm on this point that he
successfully persuaded a New Zealand Prime Minister that a
public announcement of a forecast was inappropriate because
the method was inadequately tested. In discarding what he
rightly called the anecdotal approach to earthquake
prediction and insisting upon what is now known as
prospective testing, Frank was decades ahead of the rest of
the world.
In the late 1970s,
scientific enthusiasm for earthquake prediction burgeoned.
Frank helped to formulate an International Code of Practice
for Earthquake Prediction. In 1979 he headed a UNESCO
conference on earthquake prediction in Paris, and was
secretary and later chairman of the Commission on Earthquake
Prediction of the International Association of Seismology
and Physics of the Earth's Interior.
In time, scientific
enthusiasm waned; the view that earthquake prediction is
impossible began to prevail. The arguments for this did not
persuade Frank. As time went by and new data came to hand,
the model for precursory seismicity evolved, reaching its
culmination with the Precursory Scale Increase (Pure and
Applied Geophysics 2004, 161:47-72) in which Frank and David
provided 47 examples of an increase in seismicity prior to
large earthquakes in California, Greece-Turkey, Japan and
New Zealand.
He made a full
contribution to the academic life of the university through
teaching, research and administration, and was an active
member of the Professorial Board. He retired from the chair
of Geophysics in 1988, but remained an active researcher as
Professor Emeritus. He also continued to make a collegial
contribution through social intercourse with staff and
students, debating not only science but also the events of
the day, politics, music, and any of his other interests
that happened to be under discussion.
The news of Frank's
terminal illness and rapid demise produced a universal
reaction of shock and sorrow. He will be missed very deeply
by his family and all his colleagues.
Condensed from an
obituary for the Geophysics Society Newsletter by Euan Smith
- VUW Institute of Geophysics, and David Rhoades - GNS
|
George Walker
(1926-2005)
The death
of George Walker on January 17 after a long illness marks
the passing of one of the most noteworthy figures in
20th Century volcanology. Although George
spent only 3 years resident in New Zealand, his influence on
volcanic studies here and worldwide was very great.
Born in 1926, he was brought up in London and Northern
Ireland. He studied geology for his Bachelors and
Masters degrees at Queens University, Belfast, and then
moved to the University of Leeds to complete a PhD in 1956
under the supervision of W.Q. Kennedy. In 1951 he was
appointed to an assistant lectureship at Imperial College,
London, where he worked until 1978 before coming to New
Zealand as a Captain James Cook Research Fellow of the Royal
Society of New Zealand, based in the Geology Department at
the University of Auckland. In early 1981 he took up
the newly established Gordon Macdonald Chair in Volcanology
at the University of Hawaii (where he was in turn succeeded
by Bruce Houghton). On his retirement in 1996 he
returned to the UK to live in Gloucester, but continued
working in the field and as an Honorary Professor at the
University of Bristol on various aspects of
volcanology. Such a bare-bones listing though does not
give a good description of the breadth and influence of his
work in modern volcanology.
Internationally,
his career had two distinct phases. His first major
contribution came from his work on basaltic lava sequences
in Northern Ireland and Iceland, with the recognition that
different combinations of the many zeolite species (about 60
of which he was able to recognize in the field) were
consistently present in specific zones, and thus could be
used to infer the position of the original ground
surface. In Iceland he mapped huge areas of basalt
lava sequences and used the patterns of zeolite zonation to
make fundamental inferences about crustal structure there,
showing that it was consistent only with large-scale
rifting. His observations were critical in providing
geological evidence for the process of sea-floor spreading
during the development of plate tectonics.
However,
in 1963-64 the eruption of Surtsey occurred off the south
coast of Iceland, and a visit to see a live volcano captured
George’s interest to the extent that he
changed research direction into the products of young
volcanism. From the mid 1960s through to the 1980s the
second part of his career focused on young volcanic
eruptions and their products. In general, his greatest skill
was his ability to meld observational skills with novel
conceptual models to yield fundamentally new insights into
how volcanoes worked, covering a wide range of volcano types
and eruption styles, from lava flows on Hawaii and Mount
Etna through to huge pumice eruptions in the Azores, Italy,
Japan, Indonesia and here in New Zealand. His overall
research contribution arose from his dedication to
measuring, rather than simply describing, eruptions and
their deposits, and using his exceptionally keen intuition
to generate major advances in understanding. His work was
characterized by its originality and broad scope, and
underpins most modern understanding of how volcanoes work.
He, more than any other individual worldwide, turned
volcanology from its previous descriptive style into a
modern quantitative science.
George's
time in New Zealand was from February 1978 to December
1980. The motivation to up-root from the UK (for
someone who was quintessentially British) was threefold.
First, he had become frustrated by the burdens of
administration and teaching at Imperial College (e.g., see
his response to the award of the Lyell Medal: J. Geol. Soc.
Lond. 140, 329-330, 1983), and the Cook Fellowship offered a
unique opportunity to break free and pursue research
full-time. Second, he had visited New Zealand at the
time of the 1965 International Symposium on Volcanology,
seen (and been fascinated by) the deposits now called the
Taupo ignimbrite and had resolved to try and study
them. Third, he had devised a new technique (see
below) for estimating the total volume of plinian pumice
fall deposits: he had wanted to test this method in Iceland
on the Holocene Hekla pumice falls, but was refused
permission to work there. New Zealand offered an
excellent substitute (and no permission required) in the
young plinian fall deposits of Taupo volcano.
The
research contributions George made in New Zealand were on
explosive eruption processes in the silicic volcanoes of the
Taupo Volcanic Zone. In particular, his studies of the
young deposits at Taupo volcano led to new insights into
eruption processes applicable worldwide, and were important
in publicising New Zealand volcanology on the global
stage. He devised a method of estimating volumes of
pumice fall deposits, using the observation that crystals
originally present in the magma and released during the
eruption would accumulate closer to vent than the finer
ash-sized vitric particles, by virtue of their greater
density and limited range of grain sizes. By measuring
the mass of crystals deposited on land, George could then
calculate the amount of 'missing' vitric ash that had been
blown out to sea. This technique yielded volumes about
2-3 times greater than those estimated from extrapolation of
the onshore isopach data. He took the newly described
'phreatoplinian' deposits of the Taupo eruption and
quantified their grainsize variations and proposed novel
eruption styles to explain their characteristics. He
also worked extensively on the Taupo ignimbrite (making it
the archetype of what became called 'low-aspect ratio
ignimbrites') which defied the then-prevailing ideas on
ignimbrites by being thin, widespread and having much of its
volume represented by thin veneer deposits that mantled the
landscape. Other studies during this period included
the young explosive eruptions of Rabaul caldera, the Rotoehu
Ash, the Mangaone Subgroup deposits (subsequently completed
by Z. Jurado Chichay) and the scoria fall deposits of the
1886 Tarawera eruption.
Although
George's time in Auckland was mainly focused on research, he
left a lasting impression (also very obvious at Imperial
College and the University of Hawaii) as a brilliant
teacher, supportive of anyone who wished to learn, at all
levels from schoolchildren to postgraduate students. A
major legacy worldwide is in the great number of people who
he helped, encouraged and inspired to work in
volcanology. He interacted extensively at Auckland with
students in the Geology Department and newborn Geothermal
Institute with the gift of treating all questions, even the
most stupid, with respect and patience. He taught and wrote
in a very concise and deceptively simple style, getting
across complex ideas and new concepts with simple diagrams
and clear exposition. In the field he was utterly in his
element while there was still light in the sky (and, on more
than one occasion, subsequently by car headlights), and he
had an unequalled ability in showing students how to
understand complex volcanic processes using simple
systematic observations allied with logical deductive
thinking. In turn though, from my experience and those of
others, he was quite prepared to challenge existing ideas
simply for the sake of reinforcing understanding of how
those ideas had arisen, and was also quite at ease with his
own ideas being challenged, provided that the challengers
had (more) data to demonstrate their case.
Fieldwork
with George was a challenging experience, not only because
of the intellectual demands and his formidable fitness, but
also because of logistical incidents. Lunch normally was a
box of biscuits on the dashboard of the car, eaten on the
go. He would sometimes run his car until it ran out of
petrol - this happened once with me on the Mamaku Plateau;
there was no problem as he carried a spare fuel can in the
boot, but had omitted to include any means of directing the
fuel from the can into the petrol tank. A funnel was
eventually fabricated from the core of a toilet roll. At
airports, he was a master of the last-minute arrival,
sometimes to the despair of his companions. All of us who
worked with him were always kept on our toes. He
retained a great interest in and affection for New Zealand
volcanoes and volcanology for the rest of his life. On his
subsequent visits here, he was always interested in new
ideas and developments His style and character were
unique.
George's
achievements were recognized in New Zealand by award of the
McKay Hammer of this Society in 1982 and election as an
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1987.
Worldwide, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
London, the Geological Society of America and the American
Geophysical Union. He also received an Honorary Doctorate
from the University of Iceland, the Thorarinsson Medal from
IAVCEI, and the Lyell and Wollaston medals from the
Geological Society of London. In 1977, for his contributions
to Icelandic geology, George was awarded the Icelandic Order
of the Falcon conferred by the President of Iceland, an
exceptional honour for a foreign citizen.
George's
success also owed much to the considerable support given to
him for over 40 years by his wife Hazel, who not only raised
their children, but typed and retyped manuscripts (in the
days before word processors), and also did large amounts of
laboratory work for him (particularly the componentry work
for his crystal-concentration studies in New Zealand). He is
survived by Hazel, their children Alison and Leonard, and a
grandson.
Colin Wilson. GSNZ
Newsletter 136
|
Geert Jan
"Gerry" Lensen (1921-2004)
Gerald
Lensen, a New Zealand pioneer in integrated collaborative
studies of earth deformation, worked for 30 years in the New
Zealand Geological Survey, contributing an enduring legacy
of ongoing research into active earth deformation,
particularly of active faulting, and mitigation of the
associated risk.
Geert Jan
Lensen was born in Wyhe in Holland on 5th October
1921. He was still at school when the Second World War
broke out in 1939, and when the Germans invaded Holland in
1940. He spent six months at Leiden University trying to
study geology, but to avoid being sent to Germany he went
underground, moving from place to place and earning money
where he could. With time on his hands and an interest
in natural phenomena, in 1942 he wrote and published a short
booklet on clouds and their formation; for several years
into the future it was to be useful when he was looking for
an occupation. When eastern Holland was liberated in 1944,
he went to England and joined the RAF. He trained as a
weather forecaster, flying not being an option because of
colour-blindness. In 1944 in London, he met and married Gwen
Ostler who was a friend and colleague of Daphne Suggate in
the Maps Office of the Ministry of Town & Country
Planning in London. Daphne went with Pat to New Zealand
in 1947 when Pat was appointed geologist in the New Zealand
Geological Survey office in Greymouth.
After the
war Geert went to Indonesia, where he was weather
forecasting in the Dutch air force. Returning to Holland
about 1949 when the Dutch began to leave Indonesia, Geert
and Gwen found it difficult to settle, and in 1950 Gwen
wrote to Daphne Suggate in Greymouth asking whether they and
their two-year old daughter could be offered a roof over
their heads if they emigrated - a condition for migrants not
coming to a job.
In
Greymouth in 1951, Gerald (Gerry), as he became known to
geologists, took such work as he could find, in a factory
making underclothes. He met Harold Wellman, the foremost
field geologist in the Geological Survey. On many weekends,
Harold and family would go on geologically-oriented picnics,
and Gerald joined in. He quickly picked up Harold's
enthusiasm for field work, including his interest in active
faults.
Gerald and
his family left Greymouth for Wellington in 1952, and so did
Harold and his family. Gerald got a job as a weather
observer with the Meteorological Office, not being accepted
as a forecaster because of a lack of academic qualification.
In the Geological Survey, Harold soon needed a technical
assistant, and took on Gerald. He quickly showed his
initiative, not only when helping Harold in the field and
the office but soon by developing his own ideas - not always
agreeing with Harold's - bringing together field observation
and interpretation. His first geological publication -
appropriately on the Wellington Fault - appeared in 1958.
More publications on geologically recent earth deformation
in New Zealand rapidly followed.
In 1957,
Harold left the Geological Survey and Gerald was left almost
single-handedly trying to maintain studies of earth
deformation. It was not an easy task, and in this period,
disagreements among earth scientists as to the causes of
earthquakes did not help. He stuck to his guns over faulting
being the cause of major earthquakes, and developed his
ideas on the significance of the geometric relations of
vertical and horizontal components of recent faulting for
the determination of strain - initially (1958) he called it
"principal horizontal stress (PHS)".He also made important
contributions to the Survey's principal mapping programme -
the 4-Mile Map - which was strongly supported by Dick
Willett, who had become Director of the Survey in 1956.
Initially Gerald was responsible for compiling the Wanganui
sheet (published 1959). In the summer of 1957-58 he was a
member of the Geological Survey team studying the Cape
Hallett and Admiralty Mountains areas in Antarctica. The
Kaikoura 4-Mile sheet followed (he had assisted Harold
Wellman there some years before), and Gerald carried out a
lot of new mapping, incidentally drawing a "horse allowance"
for the last time in DSIR; that sheet was published in 1963.
In the early 1960s his work was judged to be of sufficient
merit to warrant transfer to the professional staff - one of
the few in DSIR to do so without a formal academic
qualification.
The
Wanganui and Kaikoura sheets showed "Late Quaternary fault
traces" rather than active faults, as discussions led by
Gerald had emphasised the need to present objective data not
inferences. Later, however, the significance of active
faulting in relation to earthquakes was to assume greater
importance. In 1965, Gerald was one of a group making the
first attempt at zoning New Zealand for earthquake risk,
basing this primarily on the distribution of fault traces
and regional structure. In 1966, a Geological Survey report
on Late Quaternary faulting accepted that surface fault
traces were indicative of active faults, for which a
classification was provided based on the inferred frequency
of movement; it also emphasised the need for the active
faults to be considered in relation to constructions that
might cross them. Gerald advocated these ideas in relation
to town planning for the next 35 years. This report was
later updated in 1979, notably to include active
folding.
The late
1950s and the 1960s was a period in which many of Gerald's
key ideas were further developed: the geometrical relations
of intersecting faults, the importance of precise
interpretation of progressive faulting shown at flights of
terraces, and the relations between faults and earthquakes.
A definitive study was his elucidation of the progressive
faulting at the Branch River terraces (1968). With some
publications in overseas journals, his work was now becoming
recognised more widely.
He
submitted proposals to the Director of the Geological Survey
for an expansion of earth deformation studies, first in the
Wellington area (1968) and later New Zealand-wide (1969);
these proposals incorporated Gerald's ideas, involved both
geological and geodetic methods, and strongly made the link
with earthquakes. In 1968, the Inangahua earthquake, with
its associated faulting that reached the surface, and
Gerald's initiative in leading geological investigations
into it, had raised the profile of his type of work. A
fledgling Earth Deformation Section, including both
surveyors and geologists, was started, essentially a tribute
to Gerald's determination.
In 1971
Gerald used a Churchill scholarship to gain an appreciation
of earth deformation studies in England, USSR and Japan, and
in California where he addressed senators following the San
Fernando earthquake. He thus made valuable overseas
contacts. In Tokyo, where he was attached to the Earthquake
Research Institute, a snowy field trip with Prof. Yoshikawa
and Prof. Yoko Ota demonstrated the importance of active
faulting and folding. This led to long-lasting co-operation
in these studies between the two countries, notably with
Yoko Ota who recalls Gerald giving a lecture in Tokyo in
which he described New Zealand as a "paradise for the study
of earth deformation". This, and Gerald's field
observations, encouraged her to come to New Zealand in 1973,
studying the Wellington area; Gerald welcomed her to work
with his Earth Deformation Section. He gave others the
opportunity to work with her on her visits to New Zealand
and for them to visit Japan. Although Gerald did not visit
Europe and Japan again, his work led to his engagement in a
UNESCO study of the Pattan earthquake of Pakistan in 1974
with Prof. Ambraseys (UK) and Dr Moinfar (Iran) –
this work is referenced in the significant earthquake
database, (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/sig_ref.html
accessed 19 February 2005) and a UNESCO-funded study of
faulting in Indonesia in 1978.
The 1969
proposal for a greatly expanded programme of geological and
geodetic investigations was to be the principal contribution
from the Geological Survey into a 10-year programme of earth
deformation studies put forward by a committee of the Royal
Society of New Zealand in 1973. Triangulation and
trilateration networks to be observed by the Department of
Lands and Survey were the other major proposal, and these
were established. Gerald was, however, frustrated that
budget restrictions prevented much of the work that had been
planned for Geological Survey. However, the realisation did
arise among surveyors that the shape of New Zealand was
constantly changing. By the end of the programme in
1983, the unforeseen promise of GPS was looming, bringing a
completely new capability to attain many of the objectives
for which Gerald had so strongly and successfully
striven.
Gerald
continued to publish through the 1970s. Topics varied from
1:50 000 mapping showing detail of fault traces, surface
faulting related to particular earthquakes in New Zealand,
and the surface effects of the development and release of
strain before, during and after earthquake-engendering
faulting. He demonstrated practical aspects of reducing
active fault hazard risk in town planning by ensuring
changes to the subdivision plan for Totara Park in 1959, and
to the layout of the Te Marua water treatment plant and
reservoirs in 1979; both these sites are located at Upper
Hutt and traversed by the Wellington Fault. He was also in a
position to argue for the relationships between earth
deformation and earthquakes to the N.Z. Society of
Earthquake Engineering, demonstrating his philosophy of a
multi-disciplinary approach to research into earthquake risk
reduction.
Gerald's
last publication was in 1981, the year he retired. Although
he had continued his research with interpretations of the
accumulating earth-deformation information, with their
potential significance for estimation of earthquake
probability through New Zealand, he had become increasingly
involved in managing the Earth Deformation Section that he
had established within the Geological Survey. The staff of
this section advanced Gerald's research work, but
increasingly undertook the resulting applied work that was
somewhat peripheral to his principal research interests,
particularly related to earthquake risk reduction for town
and country planning and for civil engineering development
where active faults might be present. One of the latter
investigations, for the proposed Clyde Dam in 1980 and 1981,
was a major undertaking that diverted many of the staff from
other work. In October 1981, on reaching the age of 60,
Gerald took early retirement.
In
retirement, Gerald at first simply maintained contact with
colleagues and their activities, but when living in Waikanae
in the 1990s he became concerned at a proposal for housing
across an active fault in the area. He persisted in
challenging the local council, resulting in modification of
the proposal. More importantly, his efforts led to the
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment publishing in
2001 a commentary - Building on the Edge: The Use and
Development of Land On or Close to Fault Lines
(http://pce.govt.nz/reports/allreports/0_908804_96_2.pdf).
This recommended that priority be given to (1)
development of best practice guidelines for territorial
authorities in avoiding or mitigating seismic hazard through
the district plan process; and (2) issues concerning the
ongoing monitoring, enforcement, compliance, education and
guidance under the Building Act 1991. In 2003 “Planning
for Development of Land on or Close to Active Faults was
published by the Ministry for the Environment
(http://www.qualityplanning.org.nz).
This guideline was the result of collaboration of MfE with
the Geological Society of N.Z., IGNS, N.Z.Society of
Earthquake Engineering, BRANZ, and EQC. Gerald expressed
satisfaction with this collaboration and outcome.
Gerald
died on 4th October 2004. He was an individualist, and as
such he was always determined to pursue his own ideas and
objectives. He drew around him a group with varied talents
in several different fields, developing a loyal team that
appreciated and tolerated his individualism and his ability
to make the most of the resources available to him,
augmented through the ingenuity and innovation in which he
excelled. He was the sort of scientist suited to his time,
and he has left a mark that will be well remembered by
successors in his field of study.
Selected
bibliography
1958.
G.J. Lensen. The Wellington Fault from Cook Strait to
Manawatu Gorge. New Zealand Journal of Geology and
Geophysics 1: 178-196.
1958.
G.J. Lensen. Rationalized fault interpretation. New
Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 1:
307-317.
1963.
G.J. Lensen. Sheet 16 Kaikoura. Geological Map of New
Zealand 1:250 000. Department of Scientific and Industrial
Research, Wellington.
1965.
R.H. Clarke, R.R. Dibble, H.E. Fyfe, G.J. Lensen,
R.P.Suggate. Tectonic and earthquake risk zoning.
Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand
(General) 1: 113-126.
1966.
Officers of the Geological Survey. Late Quaternary faulting.
Report NZGS 7
1968.
G.J. Lensen. Analysis of progressive fault displacement
during downcutting at the Branch River terraces. Bulletin
of the Geological Society of America 70:
545-555.
1968.
G.J. Lensen. Suggestions for monitoring deformation on the
Wellington Fault and in the Wellington region (with
discussion on earthquake prediction). Report NZGS
28.
1969.
G.J. Lensen, R.P. Suggate. Proposals for earth deformation
studies. Report NZGS 41.
1969.
G.J. Lensen, R.P. Suggate. Geology. In: A preliminary
report on the Inangahua Earthquake, New Zealand, May 24,
1968. New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering
bulletin 2: 19-23.
1971.
G.J. Lensen, P.M. Otway. Earthshift and post-earthshift
deformation associated with the May 1968 Inangahua
earthquake, New Zealand. In: Collins, B. W.; Fraser,
R. ed. Recent crustal movements. Royal Society of
New Zealand bulletin 9: 107-119.
1975.
N.N. Ambraseys, G. Lensen, A. Moinfar, The Pattan Earthquake
of 28 December 1974, UNESCO Technical Report
Rp/1975-1976/2.222.3 (prepared by the Government of Pakistan
for UNESCO), Paris, France.
1976.
G.J. Lensen. Hillersden: sheets N28D, O28C and P28C. Late
Quaternary tectonic map of New Zealand 1:50 000.
1979.
G.J. Lensen. Earthquake forecasting, public policy and earth
deformation. Bulletin of the New Zealand Society of
Earthquake Engineering 12: 328-333.
1981.
G.J. Lensen. Tectonic strain and drift. Tectonophysics
71: 173-188.
Pat
Suggate and Peter Wood. GSNZ Newsletter 136.
|
Sydney "Sid" Hastie
(1908-1986)
Sydney J. Hastie, who was
well into his eighties when he died in 1996, was a major
benefactor of the Society. He donated a substantial sum of
money in 1994, which was the basis for the S.J. Hastie
Scholarship Fund. In announcing the establishment of the
Fund in Newsletter 106 (March 1995), Julie Palmer
included a short autobiography written by Sid. In a
nutshell, Sid began with nothing and worked like a beaver
until he was 50, and then he sold one of his two farms, put
a share milker on the other, and literally went into orbit.
He travelled everywhere, with his second wife, Molly.
Eventually, Molly got fed up with so much travel, and began
to stay at home while Sid went off by himself.
I met Sid and Molly when
they attended an Adult Education Field Camp that I ran at
Kawhia in the early 70's. My family was with me, and we've
been good friends of the Hasties ever since. In his spare
time between travels, Sid progressively converted his Te
Puke dairy farm into kiwi fruit orchards, selling each one
as a going concern when it was ready. He also planted
avocado orchards, and many is the bucket full of Hastie
avocados that we have enjoyed. He remained passionately
interested in geology, and attended many Society conferences
and field trips. He would phone me from time to time to ask
geological questions, and the last conversation I had with
him was early in 1996, not long before his death.
Sid used to say in jest
that he was thinking of leaving his money to Te Puke, to
build a coloured-light fountain similar to the one in
Mission Bay, Auckland. It is good that he was moved to leave
some of it for the furtherance of the field science that
gave him so much pleasure. We offer our condolences to his
third wife, Margaret, whose property near Lake Erie became
Sid's home for six months of each year. I shall miss him,
too.
Peter
Ballance
|
J. Y. "Jack"
Bradshaw (1951-1991)
A symposium was held at
the Geological Society Conference in November 1996 to
commemorate the work of Jack Bradshaw on the crystalline
rocks of southwest New Zealand. At the start, the following
two brief addresses were given by Doug Coombs and Peter
Koons.
Jack first wrote to me in
November, 1973, from Western Washington State College. He
was completing his BS, and had studied metamorphic petrology
under Professor Ned Brown, an old Otago hand. Jack enquired
about graduate work at Otago, and I see that I replied to
the effect that if he got his application in immediately, it
was possible that he could be considered for a Senior
Demonstratorship worth about $1,400 per annum, plus tuition
fees. I warned him that this was hardly enough to live on,
although some New Zealand-born graduate students claimed
that they could. Jack opted to do a masters at Calgary under
Ed Ghent, metamorphic petrologist of note and former
lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. At Calgary,
Jack met Dave Craw from Otago, also doing his MSc with Ed,
and Dave tells me he warned Jack most strongly about
Fiordland weather. By 1978, Jack had finished his Masters
thesis, he was an experienced mountain climber and
wilderness traveller, and we had University Grants Committee
funding for our Fiordland research project including money
for a Research Assistantship. This funding, perhaps I should
say, was later taken over by DSIR. Dave had not put him off,
Jack applied for the Research Assistantship, was offered it,
and duly arrived in late December of that year.
Within a few weeks he was
already hard at work in George Sound and Caswell Sound
areas, with float plane and helicopter support and the
Department inflatable boat. In that first year Jack did 99
days in the field and made over 200 thin sections. Before
the next few years were over, Jack had spent about 55 weeks
in the field, of which he rather proudly claimed to have
lost the equivalent of half, six months that is, on account
of the weather. He made reconnaissances in all the sounds
from Doubtful to Milford, and he mapped a broad swath across
northern Fiordland. In the process, he greatly extended
understanding of the nature and regional extent of the
granulitic rocks, work on which had been pioneered by F. J.
Turner, and boldly developed a few years before Jack by
Graham Oliver. Jack gave these rocks their current name of
Western Fiordland Orthogneiss. With Dave Kimbrough, he was
able to show that they were Cretaceous in age, and not
Precambrian which used to be the conventional assumption for
all granulites. Jack showed that the Western Fiordland
Orthogneiss had been emplaced magmatically at mid-crustal
level and had subsequently undergone a higher pressure
event. The mineralogical evidence indicated a pressure
increase of > 6 kbar, corresponding to an added loading
of ~ 20 km of crustal rocks, and this Jack interpreted to be
the result of a collisional event. Jack also clarified
relationships to adjacent belts.
As anyone aware of
Fiordland topography, isolation, geology and weather will
know, Jack's was a major achievement, whether or not all his
interpretations survive. His thesis was worth at least a
couple of PhDs,much as his MSc at Calgary, I was told, had
gone far beyond MSc requirements. Various papers by Jack
resulting from this work were published in the late 1980s,
and dealt with field relations, mineralogy, petrology and
geochemistry of these rocks, and Jack was selected for the
1991 McKay Hammer Award. I am sure that Alexander McKay
himself would have approved.
In the meantime Jack had
returned to America where in due course he took up a
singularly appropriate position with the US Geological
Survey in Alaska. There he established himself with his New
Zealand wife, Judith Terpstra, but sadly, tragically,
developed a brain tumour from which he succumbed after a
desperate search for help in the States. News of the McKay
Hammer Award did not reach him in time, but Judith made the
journey at short notice to the 1991 GSNZ Conference at
Massey to receive the award on his behalf. It was a moving
occasion.
Jack was a meticulous
worker, at home both under the most rugged field conditions
and in the laboratory with microscope and microprobe. He was
a perfectionist, and a worrier too. He achieved much in a
life that was far too short.
Douglas S.
Coombs
At about the same time
that Jack was writing to Doug Coombs regarding graduate work
at Otago, I was also starting inquiries, influenced by the
same Ned Brown. Through this mutual link, I came to know
Jack before he arrived in New Zealand and when I returned
from Switzerland to the staff at Otago, we renewed our
friendship. We shared a number of interests which were not
simply limited to driving and cursing light blue SKODAs,
consequently, Jack and Judith spent a great deal of time
with us while Jack was finishing up his PhD. Jack had
experience as a builder and a number of Sundays before his
PhD oral he and Judith, together with Dave Craw, helped us
build our house at Pigeon Flat.
Jack was an intense person
with an impressive sense of humour and was the kind of
person to whom rather odd things happened. For instance,
while some of us, when having a rough spell with our
graduate supervisor might draw a rough cartoon or pen some
nasty doggerel, Jack during a similar tough stretch at
Calgary eschewed the ordinary, cranked up Calgary's
microprobe and burned a nasty phrase about his supervisor
into the araldite of one of his probe specimens. Jack duly
forgot about his graffiti and about six months later asked
the supervisor to take a look at some textures on a slide
that he had under the microprobe. Well, the supervisor
started scanning around the edge and came across some
curious and unmistakable tracks. Jack's description of him
reading the graffiti by cranking the left and right specimen
drives, remains my favourite microprobe image.
We also shared an interest
in northern Fiordland geology. Jack's field area overlapped
with a region where I had done some mapping for Graham
Bishop and the DSIR. My work had been in "Boutique
Fiordland" in the Darrans near Milford and Homer while Jack
and others of the Fiordland Cadre worked in deep Fiordland.
Fiordland Geology was serious to Jack and he and I had a
number of discussions and arguments on interpretation. He
argued from a position of far greater strength and breadth
than mine and he was right. This proprietary feeling about
Fiordland is not unusual among the Fiordland cadre, but when
added to Jack's personal intensity, produced a no-nonsense
approach to petrology of Fiordland's high-grade
rocks.
I was asked to serve as
examiner for Jack's PhD and in due course fronted up to the
oral examination together with Doug Coombs as Jack's
supervisor and Nick Brothers, who as external New Zealand
examiner, ran the exam. This was my first oral examination
as a staff member at Otago and I went into Doug's office
more than a bit apprehensive. New Zealand petrology had long
been dominated by the work of Professors Coombs and Brothers
and the session looked to be a bit daunting. In an oral
examination with so much at stake when one's whole
scientific corpus is laid open, exposed, the potential for
mild hysteria in the candidate is very real. Nick, who was
very experienced at this business, understood this and
opened with scientific small talk to put Jack at ease. In
the fairly large office, he leaned back and said, "You have
referred to this as an ensemble. Hmm, that's a French word
isn't it?" Jack nodded. Now, Jack was sitting across the
room from Nick and this nod looked a bit ominous to me.
Where the average candidate would have agreed
wholeheartedly, that, yes, ensemble was French, all right,
Jack just nodded. Nick persisted "You have used a number of
French words in this thesis, haven't you?". I will never
know where Nick was leading with this line, because at this
point Jack drew his chair across the room, up to the desk,
looked Nick in the eye and said, "Are we going to get down
to something serious here, or are you just going to waste my
time?". That was the end of etymology for that
exam.
Jack was not
scientifically malleable. But neither was he intransigent. I
am sorry that he isn't here at this symposium for he would
have lent spirit, vigour and certainly integrity to the
proceedings. As he did with Professor Brothers, so he would
do here if he heard my drossy comments; pull up his chair
and say "Are we going to get down to something serious
here?"
Peter
Koons
|
Ernest "Ernie"
Johnstone Searle (1909 -1996)
Ernie Searle had two
parallel careers for much of his working life. He was first
and foremost an educationalist and remembered by all he had
taught as a brilliant teacher. Geology was his other love,
but until he was 50 it was only his evening and weekend
activity, sandwiched into a busy life first as science
master at Auckland Grammar and later as lecturer in science
education at Auckland Teachers Training College.
Ernie Searle was born at
Karangahake, where his family had a bootmaking business, on
August 28th, 1909, but when he was 7 the family moved to
Auckland where his father started a shoe retailing business.
The young Ernie was educated at Bayfield School and Auckland
Grammar and then, in 1927, went on to Teachers Training
College and Auckland University College to train as a
teacher. While he was at training college he met and became
engaged to Grace Hendriksen, a fellow teacher trainee. They
were not pleased when in 1931 they were sent to their first
teaching jobs, hers in the King Country, his in Northland in
sole-charge of two isolated country schools several
kilometres apart (Okahu No 1 and Ohaku No 2), but this was
the depths of the depression and young teachers took jobs
where they could get them. For the hard work involved in
teaching simultaneously in two schools Ernie was paid a
generous (for depression times) sum of 120 pounds per annum
although from this amount he had to purchase a horse to
transport himself between his two schools and to and from
his lodgings with a local farmer 4Km from the nearest of his
schools. However, the area in which his schools were
located, the Tokatoka district, with its many striking
eroded relics of Miocene volcanic activity, must have fueled
his interest in volcanoes. Right from the beginning of his
teaching career Ernie showed his capacity for hard work and
the value he placed on education, particularly
self-education, and during this period was also studying for
his masters degree. At the end of 1932 Ernie completed the
requirements for his MSc degree with a thesis entitled "The
Geology of the Waitakere Ranges".
Ernie and Grace were
married when Ernie was able to get a job back in Auckland
and Grace was to remain the anchor pin of his life,
encouraging and supporting him as he continued his education
and career progression from primary school teacher to
university professor and maintaining a full and active
family life for Ernie and their two daughters Barbara and
Janet.
Ernie originally studied
chemistry and this was the subject he specialised in as a
secondary school teacher. However, Ernie chose to advance
his education specialising in geology because the University
held these classes in the evening which meant he could
attend (and later give) lectures and laboratories without
them interfering with his daytime teaching jobs. In 1932,
his growing reputation as a teacher obtained him a position
as science master at Auckland Grammar and he was to remain
there for the next 19 years. But during this period Ernie's
enthusiasm for geology was also growing. In 1934 he offered
to help overworked Professor Bartrum with the Stage I
Geology laboratories. He received no payment but Bartrum was
obviously impressed with his ability and pleased to be
getting relief from the burden of having to teach and
administer everything related to geology in the
University.
In 1936 Ernie was
officially appointed Student Demonstrator in sole charge of
the Stage I Geology laboratories and continued in that role
until 1951 when he was appointed as lecturer at Teachers
Training College and also promoted to part time lecturer at
Auckland University.
It was in the 1940s and
early 50s that Ernie had the greatest influence on the
Auckland University Geology Department. Bartrum and
Searle were the Geology Department during the 1940s.
But Bartum was a very busy and rather remote man so it fell
to Ernie, with his more gregarious and caring nature, to
provide the support, encouragement and academic advice that
students advancing in geology needed. When Bartrum went on
leave in 1940, Ernie (a part-time Student Demonstrator!) ran
the Department and taught Geology at all levels. After
Professor Bartrum died in office in mid 1949, Ernie again
ran the Department and provided the academic link which
tided over the teaching programmes until 1951 when Arnold
Lillie came to take up the Chair and establish himself as
the new professor.
A prodigious worker and
enthusiastic geologist, for 25 years in addition to holding
down full-time jobs in the secondary sector, Ernie taught
engineering geology to civil engineering students at Ardmore
on Saturday mornings, introductory geology classes to
science students several nights a week, and adult education
classes at other times. For 20 years during this period he
also held a commission in the NZ Territorial Army and, as
his contribution to the war effort, taught evening pre-entry
classes for the Royal New Zealand Airforce.
During the 1950s, from his
position at the Teachers Training College, Ernie was also
very influential in school science curriculum development
both through his practical involvement with training
teachers and through his book, published by Oxford
University Press in 1958, "The Teaching of Science in
Post-primary Schools" and articles on educational
matters.
Because he was anchored
firmly in Auckland by his teaching jobs, Ernie was forced to
concentrate his geological attention on the Auckland
district. His great love was the Auckland volcanoes. He
reconstructed the Plio-Pleistocene geological history and
topography of the Auckland area by studying drill logs
"collected" from Ministry of Works and private drilling
contractors and supplementing them with his own field work,
so that he could understand the relationship between the
location of the volcanic eruption, their eruptive style and
the paths of lava flows. He also established the sequence of
volcanic eruptions. Because of his chemical training it was
obvious that he would also study the petrology of the
eruptives and their inclusions. Although his more than 40
scientific publications were focused on local geology his
research had wider significance and also an immense
practical use.
By the end of the 1950s
Ernie Searle was becoming well known as a geologist and
greatly in demand for his encyclopedic knowledge of the
subsurface geology and volcanology of the Auckland region.
He kept a register of drill logs and quarries, which he made
freely available, and provided geological advice to
contractors and local body engineers wanting to know where
to site structures and motorways and how to plan tunnels for
the drainage and sewage systems needed by the rapidly
expanding Auckland metropolitan area. He also wrote volcanic
and other geological hazards assessments of the Auckland
district in geological and engineering journals and with Les
Kermode coauthored an industrial geology map of the central
Auckland City area.
In 1959 Ernie was
appointed to a full-time position as Senior Lecturer at the
University of Auckland and was finally able to devote all
his time to geology. In 1961 he was awarded a DSc from the
University of Auckland for his work on the Auckland
volcanoes. However, always the educator and keen to share
his love of the Auckland volcanoes, he also wrote books
which the general public could use and enjoy. His "City of
Volcanoes" was published in 1964 (revised and reprinted in
1981) and with Auckland Museum archaeologist, Janet
Davidson, produced "A Picture Guide to the Volcanic Cones of
Auckland showing Geological and Archaeological Features" in
1973. He was a frequent leader of field trips around his
volcanoes for Auckland Institute members, adult education
classes, schools, clubs, festival and conference-goers to
show off his beloved volcanoes and raise local awareness in
their uniqueness. Quietly and unobtrusively he also
campaigned to stop quarrying of local cones and for the
preservation of other volcanic features.
Ernie was a superb
lecturer. His Stage I lectures and local field trips were
legendary. Peppered with wit and anecdote to keep his
audience interested, he managed to impart both his knowledge
and enthusiasm for his subject to students no matter what
their background. Advanced classes and field trips were
memorable for his unfailing good humour, patience and wide
geological knowledge. As a thesis supervisor he was
supportive and interested. He was a devoted pipe smoker all
his life, although at times it appeared that the pipe
consumed more matches than tobacco, and his pipe was never
far from him. In the field he took his pipe out of his mouth
when he laid down his head to sleep and as soon as he woke
the pipe was reinserted and restoked.
Ernie was also a good and
very patient administrator, one who suffered fools gladly,
and was consequently in considerable demand for his
diplomatic and persuasive skills. He was an elected
subprofessorial member of Senate, a member of the University
Council (1963-64) and was also Dean of Science (1965-68). In
1971 he was awarded a Personal Chair in Geology. In
addition, still involved with community service and
educational outreach during his university years, he was a
member of the Council of the Auckland Institute and Museum
for 15 years and closely associated with the Museum's school
service.
In 1972 Ernie retired from
the University at the age of 63, with the status of
Professor Emeritus to begin a new career in education
administration. He was a member of the Auckland Education
Board for 14 years, and because of his wide teaching
experience frequently acting as their trouble shooter,
helping schools and teachers in difficulties. He was
influential in preserving several North Auckland country
schools closed by the Board during this period as outdoor
recreational and educational facilities. He also served
several terms as Chairman of Orewa College Board of
Governors. His service to education was recognised by the
award of the Queen's Service Medal in 1986 and an Honorary
Fellowship of the New Zealand Educational Institute in
1987.
On his retirement from the
University, Ernie had sold his house in Auckland and moved
north to a property he had bought on Whangaparaoa Peninsula
as a beachside holiday home when his children were young. He
was widowed in 1983, but before she died Grace, who had not
kept good health for some time, taught him the basics of the
culinary arts, which he further developed (although with a
distinct penchant for spicy foods!), swopping recipes with
friends and neighbours. He commuted regularly down to
Auckland for Education Board and Museum Council meetings and
was a relatively frequent visitor to the Geology Department
common room. Finally, in 1986, battling the traffic in and
around Auckland became just too stressful, and he decided to
quit to enjoy the peace and magnificent views of his
Stanmore Bay home. Ernie continued to live on his own,
looking after himself and his garden until early in 1996
when a cancerous growth on his neck would not respond to
further treatment. He moved down to Auckland into the care
of his elder daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and John
Hawthorn, and nature took its course. He died at their home
on December 21st, 1996.
Philippa Black
Geology Department, University of Auckland
|
Dorothy Hill AC,
CBE (1907-1997)
Dorothy Hill died in
Brisbane, near enough to Anzac day. She was an outstanding
scientist, and contributed to our knowledge of New Zealand
Permian in the days when the succession at Wairaki Downs had
just been discovered. She grew up in Brisbane, graduating at
the University of Queensland in 1928, and proceeded to the
Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, where she studied mid-Paleozoic
corals from Britain and continental Europe. Granted a
fellowship at Newnham College, she nonetheless decided in
1937 to return to Queensland, determined to expand research
at the university. With the onset of war she became an
officer in the Operations Staff of the Australian Naval
Service, working on codes and ciphers so crucial for the
conduct of the Pacific war. Demobbed, she returned to the
University of Queensland, and was soon made a temporary
lecturer in historical geology, then joined the permanent
staff, rising through the ranks to become a full Professor,
and, shortly before retirement, President of the
Professorial Board at the university. The university
established a chair in her honour, the Dorothy Hill chair of
Paleontology and Stratigraphy.
No wonder! Her research
achievements remain outstanding. Mostly devoted to corals,
she was regarded as world authority, to the extent she
co-authored the first edition of the International Treatise
on Invertebrate Paleontology, and then rewrote the two
volumes of the second version on her own. She also wrote the
volume on the Cambrian Archaeocyathids. She wrote an
exquisite paper on Permian Productid brachiopods from
Queensland that has held prime value, and was widely
involved in regional Queensland geology, cooperating with
the Queensland Geological Survey to produce a map of the
state, and co-edit the Geology of Queensland, published by
the Geological Society of Australia in 1960. For many years,
she was compiling detailed maps of the local Brisbane
geology, including the Brisbane valley. As well she strongly
supported scientific exploration of the Great Barrier Reef.
With university colleagues and former students, she
established the Queensland Palaeontographical Society, which
issued illustrated guides for Queensland fossils, and
organized the successor, and successful, Association of
Australasian Palaeontologists, which publishes the journal
Alcheringa. Honours came: she was elected the first (and
only) woman president of the Australian Academy of Science,
became a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 1965, was
made a CBE in 1971, and an AC in 1993, and awarded the
Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement
of Science Medal in 1983.
Yet for all these
achievements, much of her time, and certainly much of her
interest, was centred on students. This came out especially
at honours and more advanced levels: these were seen
regularly and frequently, with both encouragement, and the
challenge to probe more deeply. Many of her students are now
scattered through the mining industry, the state geological
surveys, Bureau of Mineral Resources and successor
Australian Geological Survey Organisation, and universities.
It must have given great satisfaction to see how well some
of them did: Graeme Maxwell in the course of his studies at
Queensland actually discovered an entirely unknown basin -
the Yarrol Basin, and issued pioneering studies on
mid-Paleozoic brachiopods, Ken Campbell went on to make
profound contributions in many fossil phyla, Bruce Runnegar
focussed first on Permian bivalves and then diversified into
shell ultrastudies, Rod McKellar issued a significant study
on Devonian productoid brachiopods. There are many others
who have contributed substantially. And pleasingly for her,
John Jell assumed the mantle of coral expert, whilst a
departmental colleague Richard Orme, followed by higher
degree associates Peter Davies and Peter Flood, continued
with studies on the Great Barrier Reef.
Valuable assets were
accumulated by the department, partly from her own drive,
always with her strong encouragement, to the benefit of
staff, students, and the university and scientific
fraternity: by the mid-seventies, the department boasted a
huge library, a substantial and internationally refereed
publication series, a large museum and very carefully
protected and large type collection, a research station at
Cracow, where Dorothy had worked with students, a high-gain
seismic station, the usual accoutrements of a modern
petrology-chemical school including isotope lab., x-ray mass
spectrometer, micromass spec. 602N, wet chemical lab., etc.,
paleomag. facilities, as well as university resources that
included a research station on the Great Barrier Reef. The
finest and largest geological library by far of any
university in the country was Dorothy's particular love.
Many a time, in the 1950's, I recall Charles Fleming
ruefully telling me that Dorothy had pipped him in acquiring
some rare volume for the geological library. These two had
entered a friendly competition, to see who could do the most
for their respective spheres of work. Naturally enough, when
corals were found by M.V. Rout and R.W. Willett at Coral
Bluff, western Southland, it was arranged for Dorothy to
examine and describe them (NZ Geological Survey
Paleontological Bulletin 19, 1952). She also encouraged and
aided Heather Leed in describing Permian corals from North
Auckland. Indeed, she considered Heather's effort much more
appropriate for this country, than simply sending fossils
overseas for foreign experts to work up. When I first met
her at Brisbane in 1955, she was very pleased to learn that
I was taking New Zealand material to be described at
Cambridge. But the reaction was more critical when I told
her about ammonoids I had found in the mid-Triassic of
Wairaki Downs (with the gastropod Mellarium). Told these
were being sent to Prof. Bernard Kummel, she wanted to know
why we in New Zealand could not attempt to do them
ourselves. "You don't want to remain a colony for ever, do
you" or words to that effect.
When retirement came in
the early 1970's, that meant an end to lectures and
administration, and all the more time for work on Treatises,
papers, history articles. Her room was retained, and day by
day, she would be there, immersed in great stacks of books -
complaining that her memory was now such that she had to
check some references. A strong interest in students
remained - and she would listen with a keen and helpful
interest to honours and advanced students that I brought in
to tell her about their findings. She had a vast general
knowledge of matters palaeontological, and in sense replaced
for me Charles Fleming, who was always keen to discuss and
argue over palaeontological procedures and philosophies, not
to mention correcting a Latin ending! Small in stature, and
remarkably fit into her eighties, you could well believe she
had a hockey blue and took part in athletics, and later
earned a class A pilot's licence. The eyes remained bright,
and the humour delectably dry, and the laugh gorgeously huge
and infectious.
As health faded,
colleagues began to repay a little of what had been given -
though they would modestly deny any sacrifice. In
particular, staff and former staff Sydney Hall, John Jell,
and Geoffrey Playford would help with transport and with
shopping, and later were faithful in visiting her when she
was kept at home. One of the greatest shocks I can ever
recall was delivered when a colleague temporarily in charge
of the department bundled her out of her room and took it
over for himself. The then Head of the Department Richard
Orme, overseas at the time, was deeply mortified, but found
he could do nothing, because it had become university policy
to move on all former staff. The Chief Librarian Derek
Fielding offered her a room in his central library, but she
found a modest niche in the departmental library for a time.
She died on 23 April, after a final stroke when she could no
longer ingest food.
It is a strange thing,
that whereas Australia has been fortunate in having had a
number of senior women geologists, at least one or two per
state born near the turn of the century, it was very much
later, as far as I know, when women such as Jean Luke or
Heather Leed took a career in geology in New Zealand - and
then, for only a few years, after the second world war. Yet
the population of Queensland is the same, roughly, as New
Zealand, and South Australia and Western Australia
populations are smaller. Women also were remarkably
prominent in the geological sciences in Canada, Britain, let
alone United States and Russia, as may be seen from perusing
Bill Sarjeant's mammoth 10 volume bibliography. South Africa
had the remarkable Edna Plumstead. We seem to fall closer to
the geological fraternity of India, of all places - long
established geological survey, museums, university
departments, and few if any women, until well into the
second part of this century. It goes without saying that we
have therefore been the poorer. But why has it been so? It
cannot be that Australia provided much more incentive or
encouragement for women geologists - the Australian heroines
such as Hill, Joplin, Browne, Ludbrooke etc had such hard
times before and after graduation. Dorothy was forty before
she found permanent employment. Were they more profoundly
moved to explore the planet earth and wonder about rocks and
fossils, and so more staunchly pursued their devotion to
science, no matter what the difficulties? How strange. Yet
that was not only our gain: it was theirs as well, I am sure
that Dorothy would say, not for the honours, positions,
salaries, but for the thrill and challenge and fulfillment
to be found in the earth sciences.
Bruce
Waterhouse
|
Werner Giggenbach
(1937-1997)
Werner Giggenbach, died of
a stroke while on a field trip to the Tarvurvur volcano at
Rabaul in Papua New Guinea in November 1997.
Werner was a classical
scientist who, since the 1970s, had played a major role in
making New Zealand an international leader in geothermal and
volcanological geochemistry. He was a world leader in
developing extremely practical methods for sampling and
analysing volcanic gases and geothermal fluids. The
Giggenbach Bottle - which he perfected - has been adopted
internationally as the standard bottle for collecting
volcanic gases. He assisted more than a dozen countries,
including New Zealand, in developing their geothermal energy
potential. It is likely that his name will remain synonymous
with geothermal fluids and gases.
Known as an extremely
meticulous and practical scientist, he had a firm policy
ofanalysing only gas and fluid samples that he had collected
himself. On occasions, this saw him inside erupting
volcanoes. Once Werner decided that a particular sample
might be scientifically important, nothing would prevent him
from collecting it.
He created a first when he
entered the crater of Mt Erebus in Antarctica in December
1978 to collect gas samples. To his annoyance, expedition
team members pulled him out early when molten lava bombs
erupted around him. He was hit several times and his clothes
scorched, but he was uninjured.
Born in Augsburg, Germany,
in 1937, he gained a PhD in inorganic chemistry at the
Munich Technical University. After completing two years of
post-doctoral study in the United States, he moved to New
Zealand in 1968.
Within a few years of
arriving, he had sampled and analysed most of the hot
springs and volcanic gas vents in the country. Although
volcanoes were a new field for him, he quickly became New
Zealand's foremost expert in the application of chemistry to
volcanology and geothermal systems.
Almost all of his work has
become an important benchmark in earth science, but his
early studies of White Island stand out as being
particularly influential. In 1986 Werner organised an
international conference of volcanologists and geothermal
scientists at Ohope Beach, near Whakatane. A day-long field
trip to White Island looked in jeopardy when bad weather set
in. However, Werner successfully negotiated the use of New
Zealand navy helicopters to ferry scientists to and from the
island.
One of Werner's many gifts
was his ability to quickly learn new skills in areas outside
his main disciplines. He taught himself gas chromatography
and it became one of his main laboratory analytical
techniques.
A senior researcher with
the Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences Limited
in Lower Hutt, he produced an average of six internationally
refereed papers every year, mostly as sole or principal
author. Many of his papers were hailed by the international
scientific community for the way they presented new insights
which became useful in assessing the origin and magnitude of
geothermal sources, especially in relation to volcanic
activity. He was about to start writing a book detailing 30
years of accumulated scientific knowledge in geothermal
systems and volcanic gases.
One of the many highlights
of his career was being appointed a special consultant on
volcanoes to the United Nations. This took him to dozens of
countries to study volcanoes and geothermal systems. In 1985
he was sent to Colombia. There he predicted the path of lava
and mudflows from the Ruiz volcano, which erupted soon after
sending a huge lahar down the route he had plotted. In
August 1986, he visited Lake Nyos in Cameroon after volcanic
activity released a cloud of carbon dioxide that suffocated
1700 people in nearby villages.
Findings from his research
have also been valuable in assessing volcanic hazards in New
Zealand. More recently his work was in helping the
understanding of New Zealand's mineral and hydrocarbon
potential, and processes in the Earth's crust off the New
Zealand's east coast.
Among his many awards were
the McKay Hammer Award of the Geological Society of New
Zealand in 1991, and, also in 1991, he was nominated
Distinguished Lecturer by the Society of Economic
Geologists. In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of New Zealand, the award being made
posthumously.
A steady stream of
scientists from all over the world came to New Zealand to
work with Dr Giggenbach to gain from his experience. Of the
many who applied to join him, only a few could be accepted
because Werner did not have time or resources to devote to
this aspect of his work. He was probably better known
outside New Zealand, and he was invited to address many more
international scientific gatherings than he could physically
attend.
He applied his uniquely
creative and methodical mind to everything he did. In the
early 1970s he made intricate cardboard models to help in
the design a four-level house for a steep section he had
bought in Eastbourne.
On his most recent field
trip to Papua New Guinea, Werner was accompanied by his wife
Agnes Reyes, also a researcher at the Institute of
Geological & Nuclear Sciences. He is survived by Agnes
and his first wife Johanna, two daughters - Ellen and Jutta
- and three grandchildren.
Peter Englert, Reiner
Goguel, and John Callan
Institute of Geological & Nuclear
Sciences
|
GSNZ
Home