Robert Berner (1935 - 2015)
January 13, 2015
Dear G&G Community:
I write to bring you the sad news that Robert A. Berner, Emeritus Professor of Geology and Geophysics, passed away as a result of pneumonia this weekend. We extend our deepest, heartfelt condolences to his family at this most difficult time.
Bob got his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He did a postdoc at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography before moving to the University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor in 1963. He came to Yale in 1965, and stayed here for the rest of his career.
Bob was one of the greatest geochemists and, more broadly, geologists who ever lived. It is simply impossible to list all of his accomplishments. Much of his research centered on the quantitative geochemistry of sediments, and it's not an exaggeration to say that he defined the field as we know it. He made seminal contributions to, for example, the geochemistry of sulfides and carbonates in the oceans, diagenesis, weathering, and geochemical cycling. He was a thoughtful teacher and mentor, inspiring a whole generation of geochemists who got their Ph.D.'s or did their postdoctoral research in his lab. Today the students of Bob's students are now making their impact on the field!
Bob's research in any one of the areas he studied would have made a spectacular career. The fact that he made such fundamental contributions to so many areas makes his achievements and legacy all the more remarkable. Arguably his broadest impact has been in the area of carbon cycling. For example, Bob spearheaded the quantitative interpretation of the CO2 content of the atmosphere over the last 600 million years of Earth history. His work provided the basis for virtually all modern carbon cycling research going on today. This understanding of past CO2 levels and paleoclimates has provided an invaluable baseline of comparison for determining the impact of today's anthropogenic CO2 emissions on the atmosphere and the associated climate change.
Bob served the field of geochemistry as the President of the Geochemical Society, and received countless accolades (Guggenheim Fellow; Member, National Academy of Sciences; and many, many others). Bob's long association with the American Journal of Science (Silliman's Journal) as Associate Editor or Editor held special significance for him; indeed, many of his most influential papers were published there.
Bob had a tremendous sense of humor and could talk about almost any topic with enthusiasm and insight. He was an expert on wine (including it's chemistry!) and loved music. Given the importance of what he worked on regarding atmospheric chemistry and carbon cycling, he attracted quite a bit of media attention. I remember one instance where the news media had become very interested in his research on trapped air samples in ancient amber. Part of this translated into print as something along the lines of: Scientists Capture Dinosaur Breath! Bob thought that was hilarious and we all had a great laugh over it too.
I remember a dinner in Bob's honor some years ago. Many of his family members were present. He was holding one of his grandchildren in his arms, pontificating about some great insight he had had about geochemistry. And the little baby just reached up and grabbed his nose. He immediately dissolved into the world of that baby---the science left his mind and you could see how the love that he had for his family was such an integral part of what made him so special.
In accordance with the family's wishes, in lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Bob's name to the Geology and Geophysics Graduate Research and Field Studies fund. You can send these by mail to the G&G Chair's office c/o Rebecca Pocock. I highly recommend Bob's fascinating autobiography, which can be found here: http://people.earth.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Berner/Robert%20A_%20Berner%20Autobiography.pdf
Sincerely,
Jay
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Jay J. Ague, Henry Barnard Davis Professor of Geology & Geophysics
Chair, Department of Geology & Geophysics
Yale University, P.O. Box 208109
New Haven CT 06520-8109 USA
Phone: 203-432-3171 FAX: 203-432-3134
jay.ague@yale.edu http://people.earth.yale.edu/profile/jay-ague/about
Curator-in-Charge of Mineralogy & Meteoritics, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
Reprinted with permission.
Special Publication Series now open access
October 16, 2014
The first seven volumes of the Geochemical Society’s Special Publications Series are now available in PDF for free on our website.
Vol. 1 – Magmatic Processes (Tribute to H.S. Yoder)
Vol. 2 – Fluid-Mineral Interactions (Tribute to H.P. Eugster)
Vol. 3 – Stable Isotope Geochemistry (Tribute to Samuel Epstein)
Vol. 4 – Victor Moritz Goldschmidt: Father of Modern Geochemistry
Vol. 5 – Mineral Spectroscopy (Tribute to R.G. Burns)
Vol. 6 – Mantle Petrology (Tribute to F.R. Boyd)
Vol. 7 – Water-Rock Interactions (Tribute to D.A. Crerar)
A limited number of the hardcover editions are still available for purchase.
Broadening the Diversity of Excellence as we head to Awards Nomination Deadlines (Oct 31 2014)
October 03, 2014
Dear Members of the Geochemical Society,
In the next few weeks we face the deadlines for submission of nominations for the GS's highest competitive honours (October 31 2014). Having the most deserving and most diverse group of award winners is important for many reasons. Awardees symbolize the highest achievement in our field. They inspire all of us, and especially those at an early career stage, to do our best science. They become among the most visible spokespersons for our profession.
This is where you come in.
The development of a large and competitive pool of excellent nominees is critical to the success of the prize competitions. To develop these pools we ask that you in the community bring to bear all your scientific expertise and creative thinking. The past record of prize winners reflects scientific excellence and achievement of the highest level. Putting together a nomination package is not onerous, and unless you choose to reveal your role, is anonymous. There can be no more important role in leading and mentoring scientific accomplishments and recognition in the field of geochemistry.
There is a second important issue I hope to bring to your attention and thereby to mobilize the collective resources of our community to address. The record of achievement the Geochemical Society recognizes through prizes, plenaries and keynotes at Goldschmidt has been exemplary. But a quick look at overall past statistics also reveals that historically, our recognitions and honours have been very much focused on our European and North American membership despite the fact that more than 20% of our membership draws from outside these regions and despite a community membership which reflects a much wider range of diversity of all descriptions (gender, heritage, discipline) as well as geographic.
See earlier Elements Comments by Past-GS President Sam Mukasa on this and related topics from April 2009.
We would like to urge you now to get involved to help ensure all aspects of the Geochemical Society's activities, including prizes continue to reflect the full diversity of scientific excellence and professional achievement that is out there in our community. It is a normal human tendency to self-replicate. When asked to brainstorm a list of names for recognition of scientific excellence my own initial list would no doubt reflect too many groundwater geochemists, likely too many women, and certainly too many Canadians! Those who have studied this issue suggest are simple steps that can help us broaden our collective perspective.
Steps Forward:
Draw up your initial brainstorming list, then step back and think again – more broadly this time. Consider excellent scientists you know who are significantly different than yourself and those who you studied with and postdoc'ed with, and add those names to your nomination list. Our goal this year is to have no fewer than 5 nominees considered for each award and 30 in the consideration pool for GS Fellows.
- We can do better in the nominations phase.
- We need your expert judgement and creative vision.
- Get involved this year.
- Make a resolution to continue your involvement annually and nominate one excellent candidate each year
for something, whether it be within GS or elsewhere.
- We are counting on your leadership and vision. Your role as a scientific mentor and supporter can
change the world (https://www.geochemsoc.org/awards).
With best wishes, Barbara Sherwood Lollar
GS President (2014-2015)
GSJ formalizes relations with GS and EAG
December 13, 2013
The Geochemical Society of Japan (GSJ) held a signing ceremony with the Geochemical Society (GS) and the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) at the recent Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco, USA. The signed agreements intend to build collaborative activities between the three organizations in general and specifically with the V.M. Goldschmidt Conference. In attendance for the ceremony were President-Elect Hodaka Kawahata (GSJ), President Chris Ballentine (EAG), Vice-President Barbara Sherwood Lollar (GS), President Rick Carlson (GS), and President Naohiro Yoshida (GSJ).
Award Nomination Diversity
September 09, 2013
Do you feel that many scientific awards lack diversity? We couldn’t agree more. Please read Sam Mukasa's Triple Point from 2009 for recent statistics. Unfortunately no significant improvement has been achieved since. Why? A major reason is too few take the time to nominate worthy candidates for Society recognition. Do something about it and help us break this trend by making a nomination. Nominations are easy and the nomination deadline is October 15.
Karl K. Turekian (1927-2013)
March 18, 2013
Karl Turekian, who was the Sterling Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, passed away March 15. Turekian was a world-renowned geochemist, past President of the Geochemical Society, editor or associate editor for eight geochemistry journals, and author of numerous books and hundreds of papers. He received his A.B. from Wheaton College in 1949 and his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1955 then started what turned out to be a 50 year career as Professor at Yale. Turekian was a larger-than-life personality whose infectious enthusiasm for geochemistry contributed hugely to the development of the field. His personality shines through in his autobiography which chronicles his path through the wide range of geochemical topics to which he contributed over his remarkable career, and well displays his ability to tell a good story.
RIMG #75: Carbon in Earth released as an open access publication
March 11, 2013
Carbon in Earth is a product of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a 10-year international research effort dedicated to achieving transformational understanding of the chemical and biological roles of carbon in Earth. The book integrates a vast body of knowledge and research in physics, chemistry, biology and Earth and space sciences about carbon. A small fraction of Earth's carbon is in its atmosphere, seawater and top crusts. An estimated 90% or more is locked away or in motion deep underground - a hidden dimension of the planet as poorly understood as it is profoundly important to life on the surface. Each chapter synthesizes what we know about this deep carbon, and also outlines unanswered questions that will guide the DCO's research for the remainder of the decade and beyond. A hallmark of the DCO is the desire to implement advanced strategies in communications, data management, engagement, and visualization. Accordingly, this volume incorporates some novel aspects of animations and videos. Thanks to sponsorship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which provides significant support for the DCO, this is the first of the RIMG series to be published as an Open Access volume. Print copies are also available for purchase for US$ 40.00. Geochemical Society members receive a 25% discount on RIMG orders.
Devendra Lal (1929-2012)
December 14, 2012
Professor Devendra Lal, an illustrious cosmic ray physicist, Earth and planetary scientist, and distinguished mentor passed away on December 1, 2012 at his residence in San Diego, California. He was 83.
Throughout his long career, Professor Lal was known for the diversity and creativity of his research interests. His early work on the composition and energy spectrum of primary cosmic radiation and in elementary particle physics became the basis for his research on the mechanisms and rates of natural physical and chemical processes on Earth and in the solar system using radionuclides. He published extensively on cosmic ray produced radioisotopes in terrestrial environments, in the atmosphere, in polar ice, in the oceans and oceanic sediments, and in lakes. And he worked on nuclear tracks and radioactivity in lunar samples and meteorites. This work brought him numerous international honors, among them as a Fellow of the Royal Society, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and recipient of the V. M. Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society.
To his many friends and colleagues around the world Professor Lal was best known for his insatiable curiosity, his good humor, and as a caring and demanding teacher. He was fond of asking: "What new idea did you have today?" No idea was too big or too outlandish to be considered. He loved to experiment, and if something didn't work he would try it another way. Some of his experiments were gigantic, such as dating ocean waters by submerging meter-sized frames packed with iron-impregnated sponges or fibers into the deep sea for many hours to extract minute quantities of the natural radioisotope silicon32. He often frustrated his colleagues and students with his all-consuming pursuit of science. He was both uncompromising and patient with students, often lamenting their poor preparation, especially in mathematics, but also spending hours with them until they understood the material.
Devendra Lal was born February 14, 1929 to a large family of modest means in Varanasi, India, where he completed his bachelor's and master's education at Banaras Hindu University. His pioneering PhD thesis research on cosmic ray physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay (Mumbai) and Bombay University, completed in 1960, had its roots in the origins of modern physics in Germany and the United States through his thesis advisor Professor Bernard Peters, who was a refugee from both Nazism in Germany and McCarthyism in the US.
He first came to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as a visiting researcher in 1957, and 10 years later as a professor of nuclear geophysics. Over his long career Professor Lal divided his time between Scripps/UC San Diego and appointments in India, first as a professor at the Tata Institute and then as professor and director of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, before making Scripps his full-time academic home in 1989. Professor Lal and his late wife Aruna have been generous supporters of Scripps and PRL, notably through their endowment of the Devendra and Aruna Lal Fellowship in support of creative and exceptional Scripps graduate students and a similar Trust that provides scholarships for selected high school students from Ahmedabad to pursue college educations in science. His wisdom and his good humor will be sorely missed, but his academic legacy and personal impact will remain with us for many years to come.
-Ray Weiss
John J. Mahoney (1952-2012)
November 26, 2012
John J. Mahoney had earned a B.A. in biology from the University of Colorado in 1975. He then went back to his native Montana where he worked for a while as a carpenter. During that time John had an 'encounter' with Al Engel working on Al's house. You didn't just meet Al, you definitely had an encounter. Somehow Al had learned about John's interest in deep-sea sediments and encouraged him to apply to Scripps Institution of Oceanography for graduate work. John thought he was interested in sedimentology but once he got to Scripps in 1978 other encounters changed his mind. For his thesis he used high precision isotope data coupled with careful major and trace element analyses to probe the origins of one of the world's major flood basalt provinces, the so-called Deccan Traps of India, as well as a similar but much smaller (although also important) lava outpouring, the Rajmahal Traps (also in India). John earned his Ph.D. in 1984, spent a year at Univ. Minnesota as a postdoc, and shortly thereafter (1985) he moved to the University of Hawaii. John established a radiogenic isotope laboratory at UH and used it to pursue a wide array of research topics, including the causes and consequences of flood basalt volcanism, the formation of oceanic plateaus, linear chain volcanism in the Pacific, and magma formation at mid-ocean-ridges and Hawaiian volcanoes. He pursued related research into topics such as the dynamics of mantle melting and the use of geoneutrinos to understand Earth's internal radioactivity. He was awarded a research excellence medal by UH in 1995, and with Mike Coffin (now at Univ. Tasmania), established the Large Igneous Provinces commission of IAVCEI in 1993, stayed at its helm until 1998. He edited an influential AGU monograph on flood basalt volcanism in the 1990s and was an editor of JGR Solid Earth during the 2000s. John was a dedicated educator and mentor to graduate students and postdocs. He was also an outdoorsman and concerned about the environment. During the 2000 presidential race, he was contacted by Al Gore's team about a possible science advisory position if Gore won the election. John Joseph Mahoney died on Friday 23 November in Honolulu after a brief illness. John was a professor emeritus and research scientist in the department of Geology & Geophysics, and a lover of the natural world. He is survived by his wife Nancy; his siblings Donna Mahoney, Marla Mahoney, and Tom Mahoney, and their families; and by his three WW II jeeps. His wife, Nancy, was with him when he died. As a student and colleague John was thoughtful and polite. One never saw him get really angry - frustrated, maybe (especially with the red tape in India) but not angry. He will certainly be missed.
-Doug Macdougall, Jim Hawkins, Guenter Lugmair, and Ken Rubin (courtesy The Scripps LOG, December 7-14, 2012 vol. 48 no. 49)
Varanasi Rama Murthy (1933-2012)
October 15, 2012
Dr. Varanasi Rama Murthy passed away October 12, 2012. Known simply as Rama to his many friends and colleagues, his career ranged widely with numerous contributions to mantle geochemistry and cosmochemistry as well as to science education. Born July 2, 1933, Rama received his undergraduate training from Andhra University and the Indian School of Mines. He migrated to the United States for his graduate studies resulting in his PhD in Geology from Yale University in 1957. His first postdoctoral studies were on the isotopic composition of meteorites, working with Clair Patterson at Cal Tech to refine the Pb isotope age of the Earth, then with Harold Urey as an Assistant Professor at the newly formed University of California, San Diego on nucleosynthetic anomalies in silver and molybdenum in meteorites and a comparison of samarium, europium and gadolinium isotopic composition between meteorites and Earth rocks to elucidate the role of neutron irradiation in the early solar system.
Moving to his position on the faculty of the University of Minnesota where he stayed from 1965 until his retirement in 2006, Rama's attention turned to chemical and isotopic studies of mantle rocks, a highlight of which is his 1985 Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences contribution with Mike Roden on the subject of mantle metasomatism, one of the early expositions on this important process of chemical modification of Earth's interior. On the return of the first Apollo samples, Rama undertook geochronologic and chemical studies of lunar basalts leading to models for the chemical evolution of the Moon (e.g. Rama Murthy et al., Nature 1971).
Following a long term interest in the composition of Earth's core that began with his first paper on the subject in 1970 (Rama Murthy et al., Physics of Earth and Planetary Interiors), Rama is perhaps best known for his suggestion (Science 253, 1991) that the excess siderophile abundances in Earth's mantle might reflect a high-temperature, magma-ocean, formation for the core. In his model, the high-temperature, high-pressure, of this mode of core formation drove metal-silicate partition coefficients of siderophile elements between liquid metal and silicate to lower values than those measured in one atmosphere experiments. This suggestion led to a huge and continuing experimental effort by a number of workers who explored the pressure and temperature dependency of siderophile element partitioning. Rama continued this line of investigations with experimental work of his own withcolleagues at the Geophysical Laboratory to see whether potassium might be soluble in iron metal at high temperature and pressure and thus provide a radioactive heat source inside the core.
While undertaking this active research career, Rama also served a number of administrative roles at the University of Minnesota including the Head of the School of Earth Sciences, Associate Dean and Acting Dean in the Institute of Technology, and Vice Provost and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. His generous nature, wide ranging interests, and ability to tell a good story made him a favorite colleague of many and a success in his many academic pursuits. During his career, Rama received numerous awards including election as a Fellow of the AGU, a Life Fellow of the Indian Geophysical Union, and award of the Outstanding Service Award from NASA. Rama retired in 2006 where he continued his scientific pursuits as a Research Professor with the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico.