| CLOSE | THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY DIVISION Volume 25, Number 1, January 2001 |
For members of the Division and others, the core of the 2000 GSA Annual Meeting in Reno with its business meetings, awards, and other events, was our Pardee Keynote Symposium. "The Pardee Keynote Symposia" are made possible by a grant from the Joseph T. Pardee Memorial Fund. These sessions are special events that should be of broad interest to the geoscience community. Topics appropriate for these keynote symposia should be on the leading edge in a scientific discipline or area of public policy, address broad fundamental problems, are interdisciplinary or focus on global problems. The primary criterion for selection is excellence. Selection is on competitive basis with only four to eight half-day, non-concurrent (one per half day: minimum of one per day) sessions being offered. All speakers are to be "invited". The title of our Symposium was "Lamont and Tectonics: History of Geology Division Millennium Symposium: Lamont 1949-1999".
Our proposal to the GSA Annual Program Committee included the following rationale: This may be the last opportunity to bring together the surviving founders of the global plate tectonics theory, which has been called one of the most profound addition to geology since Hutton's revolutionary eighteenth-century approach to the geologic record. Today the theory is taught as fact to children even in grade school.
The History of Geology Division wished to show how this theory progressively evolved, and to let the geological pioneers responsible for discovery relate for themselves the scientific observations and events that shaped geologic thinking. The proposed program consisted of twelve speakers of whom nine have a Lamont background. These included Penrose medalist (and GSA Past President) Jack E. Oliver who used seismology to create major parts of the plate tectonic revolution; James Heirtzler was the first to make use of recent technological development of a self-operated, medium-sized computer to organize the massive amount of magnetic data collected on cruises; Marie Tharp discovered the Mid-Ocean Ridge, and the fundamental morphology of the ocean floor based on study of continuously recorded echo profiles and mapped the tectonic fabric of the world's oceans-, Lynn R. Sykes discovered geomagnetic reversal and noted that the initial motion of earthquakes provides impressive confirmation of drift movements along fracture zones in the rift valley; Manik Talwani studied the structure of the Puerto Rico Trench and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Neil D. Opdyke studied the history of polarity inversions of the Earth's magnetic field; and geochemists Heinrich D. Holland and Karl K. Turekian related geochemistry to plate tectonics. Two non-Lamont geologists were included in the symposium to provide an outside scientist's view; W. Jason Morgan developed a method for finding pole locations from variations in the rate of seafloor spreading, as determined from magnetic stripes, and also produced the first map showing the major plates of the world, and Naomi Oreskes who is not a Plate Tectonic pioneer, but provided important questions for the younger generation of scientists. The final speaker William Glen, a historian, gave an overview of the symposium from a historian's point of view.
November 10 and I I Sue and I spent in Laramie, Wyoming at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Foundation. The University of Wyoming boasts Geoarchives, which it collects, preserves, and makes available to researchers in geology. At this stage more than 285 collections of individual geologists and geophysicists make up the cornerstone of the collection. Among those listed are some of my professors as well as fellow scientists. The building in which these collections are stored is fully climatized and secured. The documents are in boxes on automatically moving shelves.
Members of our Division have been extended an invitation and are encouraged to store their archival material at the Heritage Foundation. There are 25 boxes of my own archival/manuscript materials that are accessioned there. In fact, upon my arrival home the Foundation had shipped 20 of their standard boxes at its expense and so I am busy getting further archives for dispatch.
I want to thank Sally Sutherland [ SallyS@uwyo.edu ] and Rick Ewig, Development Officers; Bill Hopkins, Shipping and Handling of Collections [ whopkins@uwyo.edu ]; Ginny Kilander, Archivist [ papyrus@uwyo.edu ]; and Anne Marie Lane, Curator [ amlane@uwyo.edu ] for their hospitality. Members please contact any of these staff members at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center, Centennial Complex, P.O. Box 3924, Laramie, Wyoming 82071 or via e-mail. Please contact me (Gerry) if you have questions or comments.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those individuals who have made the chairmanship of the Division a very pleasant experience for me, especially the Management Board members Ken Taylor, Sally Newcomb, Celfil Sengör and Bill Brice. Many thanks. Further, I want to thank all of those Division members who volunteered their time and effort, especially Rena Bonem, Dorothy Sack, Stephen Rowland and Michelle Aldrich. Thank you for making this past year a rewarding experience. Best wishes to everyone for the New Year!
| CLOSE | THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY DIVISION Volume 25, Number 1, January 2001 |