Emeritus Faculty Activities
My academic program continues to wind down. Ben Smith, who has been tracing the northern shear margin of stagnant ice stream C to understand better the history of the ice stream, finished his Master's degree in December. Despite his careful analysis, including corrections for accumulation-rate variations that he derived from the depth of the internal radar-reflecting horizons, there is still no clear pattern of stagnation. He will remain in the Department working on GLAS-related activities through next summer, then plans to begin his Ph.D. program at the University of Washington next fall. Chen Liu finished his post-doctoral work by completing the data analysis from the radar sounding survey of ice stream D and has moved on to a commercial job in California.
I still continue my participation with the NASA "GLAS" team, helping to design the satellite-laser-altimeter experiments for "ICESAT," which is scheduled to be launched into a high-inclination (about 86°) in July, 2001 (or perhaps a couple of months late). If all goes well, ICESAT will provide rates of change of surface heights with an accuracy of a few centimeters a year over all of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. This spring I plan to submit a joint proposal to NSF for airborne laser-altimeter experiments over East Antarctica as a form of ground-truth experiment for GLAS. With great luck, that could give me the excuse I need to travel to Antarctica again in the new millennium.
The beginning of the new millennium heralds a number of significant changes in my life at the University, but more on that later. Like any self-respecting year at the UW some things change, some don't. This year was no exception.
For the first time last spring I shouldered the load in offering Introductory Oceanography in collaboration with Kim VanScoy in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Departing from past norms Kim and I spent considerable time teaching the labs as well as giving lectures. It was a fun experience as it got me closer to students on a one-on one basis, an otherwise difficult goal in large enrollment, elementary classes. A guest appearance in the White Lake course provided an opportunity to spend a couple of days in Canada leading a field trip, and to introduce Brad Singer and Basil Tikoff to this classical geological area. This fall found me teaching Elementary Geochemistry and the Sapelo trip. The Sapelo group included a better than average group of grads from across the environmentally oriented programs on campus. Excellent weather, student enthusiasm, and five faculty members made this one of the most memorable in years.
My research continues along three separate lines of work, the LTER project and two projects with the USGS. The LTER project is going well, having passed our NSF site review in October with flying colors. We're trying to collect our results from 19 years of operation into a book to be published by Oxford Univ. Press. Among my tasks are to complete a chapter summarizing our groundwater research and to take photographs for the cover of the book. Trips to Vilas County now include stops at the Rhinelander airport to overfly our site in hopes of getting shots suitable for the book. The USGS projects include my long-term collaboration with Blair Jones on mass-balance analysis of stream and groundwater chemistry, and a wrap up of our work on the Colorado River primary production study at Lees Ferry, AZ. Sadly the Bureau of Reclamation has moved more to a political/economic stage in their work on the Colorado River, and they don't seem as interested in supporting anything more than long-term monitoring of sand movement and fish populations in the river. Marzolf (USGS) and I are seeking alternative ways to develop tools to help us understand biogeochemical processes in the tailwater reach of the Glen Canyon dam.
A chapter in an AGU book on the river work (including the cover photo), presentations at AGU in San Francisco, ASLO in Santa Fe, and NABS (North American Benthic Society) in Colorado and a USGS open file report provide an ample "paper trail" of our work. Summer of 1999 was somewhat different for me, and may have foreshadowed my future summers.
The month of July was spent with my family and friends on an extended trip "out west" with stops in Omaha, NE (daughter), Jackson, WY (Dave Stephenson), Ashland, OR (Phil Hart, ret. UW Pharmacy), a family reunion to celebrate Judy's parents 60th wedding anniversary in South Lake Tahoe, and finally a photo journey that took me from Wyoming through the backbone of Utah's plateau country into New Mexico via Ship Rock, Albuquerque, and White Sands to end up in Santa Fe to participate in a week long photography workshop.
In Santa Fe, I worked with Eddie Soloway, one of the Santa Fe Workshop's premier photography instructors. After over 40 years of carrying a camera around with me to photograph "geologic scenes" on my many trips, (what self-respecting geologist wouldn't), and realizing that taking pictures was more of a challenge than I had realized. I decided it was time to hone my skills at the craft under the direction of those who make a career of it. The experience was tremendous and revealed how much more there is to photography than pointing your camera at a scene and letting the camera choose the focus, exposure, etc. At least my "right brain" was declared in working order, and I continue to get support from those who appreciate the creative elements of photography. I hope you like the cover of The Outcrop.
Finally, after 36 years of teaching at Wisconsin I decided to "retire" from the University.On January 3 of the new millennium, I became one of the growing numbers of emeritus faculty at the UW. The backlog of manuscripts to finish, and a few to start, continued involvement with the research on the LTER project and with my USGS colleagues provide ample "work" to keep me busy. I'll continue to direct the geochemistry laboratory, and find plenty of other distractions to keep me busy (if that's what retirement means). When not otherwise doing "geologic work" Išll find more and more time to express myself through the medium of photography. My daughters have been forewarned to expect random visits from Judy and I to enjoy some of the "perks" of having grandchildren.
In June, I ended 42 years of teaching (two at SMU, four at BYU, and 36 at UW) and joined the growing ranks of the department emeriti staff, packed my bags and moved to Santa Rosa, California. Before this all concluded, the department (with the guidance of Dana and Charlie), gave me a nice retirement dinner complete with recollections, gifts and letters from many of my 78 former graduate students. There was a nice turnout including three of my grandchildren and a couple of former students who traveled considerable distances to attend. Needless to say that I never really anticipated retirement and still can't believe that this is the way one ends a career, but it happened.
And while I'm still working on a couple of manuscripts, reviewing the text for a book, and answering questions for a variety of folks who have stayed in contact concerning previous work, I now spend most of my time enjoying the ocean (25 minutes away), the exotic California plants, lounging around the pool and spa in my backyard (at least until it started raining last month), and laughing at the northern California winter storm warnings. (The last winter storm included almost an inch of rain with temperatures plunging into the 40's.) Between winter storms, that are to be finished for the year in a few more weeks, we enjoy exploring the Coast Ranges, sitting on the beach, and doing a few things on our new house.
My final semester in the department included giving away approximately 1000 volumes, placing all of the Arctic material in the repository, and asking Klaus Westphal to take charge of my extensive conodont collections. While I miss the association with former staff and students and the library, retirement isn't all that bad and I wonder why I ignored the inevitability of it for so many years!
C.S. Clay
Some things change from year to year. It may be global warming. Lake Mendota froze 1/13/200 and opened 3/7/2000. Mendota appears to be freezing later and opening earlier each season.
Research in acoustical oceanography continues with trips and a paper with Chris Feuillade on scattered sound. Last spring, I traveled to NRL-Stennis Space Center to consult on under water sound and give a seminar on properties of the fractal seafloor. In the fall, I took a second trip to NRL-SSC to be a member of an external review committee. Laboratories treat members of external review committes rather well. One wonders if they hear the advice.
Last summer Jane and I made a science trip to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. On the way, we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water", Nyack (Liangs, my engineer at Columbia University), Hastings on Hudson (Ettinger, our N.Y. house, and old Haunts), Cape Cod (Halperns, an MD from Jane's unit), Duxbury (Stantons, a research associate at UW). Thus, we visited many friends.
Otherwise, music, bands, orchestra, daily practice, concerts, and lessons keep us busy. Both Jane, clarinet, and I, baritone and trombone, played concerts and solos. Jane is getting better with bridge. I enjoy collaborations with younger scientists and science trips. These activities keep our minds and fingers working. Books, friends, and family are comforts and joys. I still have the aftermath of "shingles" and our old joints ache. So, we seem to need more rest, relaxation, and work outs at the gym.
Cambell Craddock
Dottie and I continue to enjoy good health and to live quietly in retirement. We both remain active in our church, and I conducted the service one Sunday in June. In April we went to Scotland to attend a relative's wedding in Dunkeld Cathedral, the construction of which began in the first millennium. In June we attended a garden party in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, to celebrate my father's 95th birthday. We also made trips to visit our children and their families in Plymouth, MN, St. Paul, MN, and Atlanta, GA. We vacationed for a week at a relative's cabin in northern Wisconsin.
Much of our time has been invested in the pursuit of family genealogy. Some of you know that I was adopted as an infant in Chicago in 1930. Since 1991, with the help of several friends, we have searched for my birth family. In September we at last obtained the birth certificate of my birth mother Alice. The Social Security Death Index revealed that Alice died in 1995, but it allowed us to find her obituary. She was buried in Houghton, Michigan, two weeks before I passed by with my final Lake Superior field trip. In October we contacted, and then visited, her survivors - a twin brother and niece in northern Minnesota, and a step-sister in Houghton. All these folks live in COLD places, so my genes must have pointed me to Antarctica, Alaska, and Spitsbergen. We have also learned that one great-grandfather was a tin miner in Cornwall, England, who emigrated to America in 1872 and settled first in Houghton. This story continues to unfold. So far my ancestors are English, Scottish, andGerman; but I am American. Now I am out of the closet.
1999 was the University's sesquicentennial year, so I found some special activities to occupy me. I wrote a Sesquicentennial Timeline for the department, which all alumni should have received. This document supplements S.W. Bailey's fine history of the department up to 1980, although it has a very different format.
The Alumni Reunion in May tied in with the sesquicentennial, so I spent considerable effort researching the early history of the department. The pioneer work of our forebears in the Lake Superior Iron Districts early in the 20th Century really put us on the map, so to speak. The intellectual genealogy of Irving, Van Hise, Leith, and Mead created a remarkable legacy, which contributed some fundamental principles of structural and metamorphic geology that attracted worldwide attention as well as students from many countries. I spoke about this at the reunion, published a first article about it for lay people in May, and I am now wrapping up a longer article for a specialist audience.
Also for the reunion, I gleaned some highlights from the old Outcrop yearbooks and prepared a series of posters, which were displayed at the banquet in May and again for our departmental party at the GSA meetings in Denver in October. Sooner or later, you probably will see them some place.
For a symposium at the GSA Rocky Mountain Section meeting in Pocatello, Idaho in April, I was invited to give a retrospective kick-off talk about my ancient dissertation work on Pennsylvanian strata in northern Nevada in the early 1950s. The invitation to hear about such old work came as quite a surprise, but doing it turned out to be great fun. As usual, that meeting was well populated by Badger alums, including Tom Morris, Bart Kowallis, Scott Ritter, Eric Bestland, Craig White, Jeff Keith, Joe Reece, Gary Gianniny, Pat Shanks, George Desborough, and one or two others I have forgotten. For the national GSA meeting in Denver, I was talked into speaking about the early Wisconsin School of Precambrian Geology. There were far too many Badgers at that meeting either to remember or to list.
Besides poking around in archives, I also give an occasional lecture or field trip, but mostly for non-specialists. Spreading more geological awareness seems to me a worthy effort for a pensioner. Another way I am trying to do this is by coauthoring a Roadside Geology of Wisconsin. John Attig of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and I hope to complete this project in 2000. It will be published in the Roadside series of the Mountain Press of Missoula, Montana. I actually do just plain fun stuff, too. For example we had an outstanding Dott family reunion in August up on the Precambrian Shield on the border of Minnesota and Ontario with lots of canoeing, fishing, swimming, etc. Nancy and I travel alot to visit our six grandchildren and other family members, too, for they are widely scattered over the map.
In October, Nancy and I went to the 50th Anniversary celebration of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Lamont was just getting started when I was a PhD student at Columbia in the early fifties, and, although never directly involved there myself, I have known many Lamonters over the years. Weather was gorgeous and we had a ball both at the Observatory on top of the Palisades of the Hudson River (Triassic) and later in Manhattan.
Two particularly notable events occurred in 1999 that must be mentioned. Long- time colleague, Eugene N. Cameron, died in April (see an accompanying article). Gene was the chairman of the department when I arrived in 1958, and we enjoyed many pleasant professional and social times together; he had a considerable positive influence upon my early career. A much happier event was Edith Konopka's defense of her PhD dissertation on March 1st. It was a long haul for both of us, but with a very satisfying outcome. Edith was the last student to earn a graduate degree under my supervision. Guess I really can retire now.
Bob Gates
I don't remember when I last contributed to the newsletter, but as I do travel in the winter I was probably out of the country during the ten days we have to submit it.
When I am not traveling I try to keep in shape at the athletic club, playing golf, and biking. I continue to exercise my mind by taking courses at the University's "Learning in Retirement" group, PLATO. The last science course I took was on the first three seconds of the Big Bang.
In 1997 I missed the newsletter as I was on a five week Odyssey tour of South America starting in the Amazon rain forest at Manaus and traveling clockwise to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Igassu Falls, Montevideo then across to the Pacific via Bariloche to Puerto Mont. Next time I could skip the east coast, but from Puerto Mont to Quito was a great experience and prompted me to return there last summer.
After three trips to the Hawaiian Islands since retirement I finally got to the "Big" one, Hawaii in 1998 and got to see some active volcanos. Beaches and golf courses are not as good as Maui, but the coast line, whale watching, and snorkeling are spectacular.
Igassu Falls in Brazil inspired me to visit Victoria Falls and some of the rest of South Arica. Victoria Falls and Igassu are similar geologically, but the elephants and rhinos up stream from Victoria make it different. From Victoria Falls to Cape Town there are more game preserves than I could count but a return visit would be for a longer look at the south coast from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town - a good place for a winter vacation if it weren't 17 hours by air away.
Back to Maui in March of '99 with my step-daughter, Tracy, who conned me into bicycling from the top of Haleakala and snorkeling until blistered and doing other activities that 30 year olds do. The change of pace from traveling with the geriatric set was so nice that Tracy and I took a three week vacation last summer in Peru and Ecuador, one week in the Peruvian rain forest, another at Cusco, Machu Pichu, and the valley of the Incas, and finally a week cruising the Galapagos.
To complete 1999 I moved into a new condo that I had built for me in October. To start the new millennium right in a week I am leaving for a three week hiking trip in northern India and Nepal.
Retirement is even more enjoyable, but alas, much busier, than I anticipated. Two weeks in March were spent in Syria, where I lectured at Damascus University and collected mantle and lower crustal xenoliths from the Cenozoic As Shamah volcanic field (returning with 240 samples for analysis!).
Nancy and I sneaked away in July with my daughter, her boyfriend, and Nancy's nephews for a delightful climbing trip to the Black Hills (Rushmore and the Needles) - a magical place, where we delighted in delicate stances on feldspar phenocrysts of the Harney Peak granite.
I returned to Romania in September for more field work on eclogites in the S. Carpathians and to present a couple of papers at a meeting of the Romanian Mineralogical Society, followed by a week in Prague to get my annual fix of Czech beer, culture, and garnet peridotites.
Over Thanksgiving, Nancy and I travelled to Texas to celebrate the holiday with her family, and to explore new (for us) climbing areas in Oklahoma and Texas - the Wichita Mountains (OK) and Enchanted Rock (TX) are primo spots, to which we will surely return. Amongst all this, I'm continuing to work on the Baraboo Quartzite and related topics, extending the investigation to the Flambeau, Barron, and Sioux Quartzites.
In May I presented a paper at the 45th Inst. on Lake Superior Geology on the chemistry, mineralogy, and origin of Baraboo, Barron, and Sioux pipestone, and this year will describe the geochemistry and mineralogy of a saprolite (paleosol) beneath the Barron Quartzite and its implications for Paleoproterozoic climate in the region. I continue to be fascinated by how much remains to be discovered in the Baraboo and related quartzites.
Lloyd Pray
1999 marked my completion of ten years as an Emeritus Professor at UW-Madison and my 80th birthday. During the past decade I have enjoyed a close continuing interest and relationship with the department including participation in a number of sedimentary geology field trips with Toni Simo and others, especially to favorite haunts of mine in the Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountain area of West Texas and New Mexico. As the decade neared completion I'm doing less and less personal research, even in my favorite areas, but follow with interest the work of former students and others by attending conferences and field trips. There has been no let-up in requests for letters of recommendation or evaluations of former students and it's satisfying to respond for persons I respect.
Carrel and I have been favored by continuing good health. Sure we are wearing out, but slowly, so far. The tapering off of personal time spent doing geology has permitted more time for interactions with our large family, more time for gardening and tending to surroundings at our small farm and more opportunity for Carrel and myself to travel. With three of four sons, their wives and 10 of our 12 grandchildren living in Montana, California, and Ohio travel there has been frequent, as well as to a family cottage on the south shore of Lake Superior.
Overseas trips, such as to Great Britain, Spain, Hawaii, and New Zealand have been fun. A spring 1999 trip around the Horn of South America filled a long-held urge (all of you who revel in rugged glaciated mountains in pristine settings should get to the new Chilean National Park, Torres del Paine.)
Late this year we had fine trips to Ireland, Maine, Montana and to California at Rose Bowl time. We were there! I have been fortunate, surprised and pleased to be recipient of several geologic awards as I neared and reached 80. In 1998 I received AAPG's Distinguished Educator Award and the first Wallace E. Pratt Award for Resource Stewardship from Guadalupe Mountains National Park (fine field behavior of my many thesis students in the park counted here).
This year I was shocked and delighted to receive SEPM's Twenhofel Medal. Nice to live so long! My sponsors for these "trophies" included former students. I'm reminded of the wisdom of the saying, "a saving grace of academie is the incredible tolerance of students." I hope to see many of you geology grads at the April AAPG-SEPM meeting in New Orleans.
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