Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir. George Devries Klein
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faculty was badly split. Thompson and Youngquist basically took over the department and rammed things down the throats of the other faculty. Both were paleontologists and wanted to make KU a paleontological powerhouse. When Smith left for the University of Massachusetts that summer, he was replaced by Charlie Pitrat, a paleontologist teaching geomorphology. Thompson also hired Ed Zeller to start a program in thermoluminescence geochemistry but Zeller earned a PhD from Wisconsin in paleontology, as had Doris, his wife.
This split impacted graduate students. Those who weren’t part of the paleontology group were not as well treated as the paleontology graduate students. After earning my Masters in 1957, Thompson left to become principal geologist at the Illinois Geological Survey in Champaign, IL, Farquar (petrology) left for the University of Massachusetts, and Youngquist left for the University of Oregon.
Frank Foley (KGS Director) became both KGS Director and Department chairman in the fall of 1957, and Hambleton basically ran the KGS. Louis Dellwig became Associate Chairman and ran the department. Pitrat taught paleontology, and Wakefield Dort was hired from Penn State to teach geomorphology. Under Foley’s leadership, the department settled down.
The format for the field stratigraphy was definitely atraditional. Early in March, 1956, we received a notice that Moore wanted to meet the class one evening to give instructions. The class would measure stratigraphic sections during spring vacation in newly blasted road cuts along the Kansas Turnpike. We were to meet on the first Saturday of spring vacation, start work and return to Lawrence that night. We did the same on Sunday. Then we were to bring changes of clothing to complete a road trip, spending the night in local hotels. On the first three days, we brought lunches, and from Monday night until we returned, we ate in restaurants.
On that Saturday, I arrived slightly later than the rest of the class and the two carryalls were already full. I therefore rode in the car that Ray Moore drove. That was a blessing in disguise. The others in the car were John Mann, and Wayne Bates. Bates, Mann and I were all completing Master’s thesis work with Dellwig.
It was perfect spring weather: Clear skies, cool, crisp air, and the spring wheat had just sprouted giving the landscape a coat of green.
In some ways, the week was a defining one for me. I was able to have the same mentoring type of conversation with Moore like the one I had with Joe Peoples after a field trip in 1952. Moreover, we were measuring sections on Pennsylvanian cyclothems. Moore taught us how to keep track of each stratigraphic unit by observing the topography and identify them on successive ridges as we headed west. Not once during the trip did Moore lecture so we never discussed as a class the origin of cyclothems. I learned his interpretation by asking questions in the car.
Ray Moore clearly taught me much including:
- the art of scholarship,
- the importance of preparation and the meaning of terms,
- how to become a committed scientist,
- the importance of long, hard work,
- the importance of setting and achieving goals,
- how to staying focused,
- the importance of brevity,
- the importance of establishing and maintaining high standards professionally and ethically,
and
- the importance of never giving up on my goals, my dreams, or myself, no matter how tough sometimes things can be.
Be assured, I owe Ray Moore a lot because his example guided me during much of my career even though he was neither my thesis advisor nor on my Master’s committee.
I recall during one lunch stop at a family-style restaurant in Larned, KS, Moore gave me some unexpected advice. I sat across from him on the inside seat of a booth, with two other students. We were served an entree on our plate, Dutch-style fried potatoes in an urn, and vegetables in a separate urn. Dutch-style friend potatoes were a big favorite, and I helped myself with seconds and thirds. Moore looked at me and said nothing.
We each received individual checks for the meal and the two students on the outside of the booth filed out to pay their bill. I followed standing behind them. Suddenly, I felt someone grab my arm and turned around. There was a red-faced Dr. Moore and he said, “Klein, I think you’ll make a great geologist, but if you eat like that you’ll never make it.”
I replied, “Thank you sir” and remembered being told he survived two heart attacks. I never ate Dutch fried potatoes again.
There was a second incident that occurred at an outcrop at a road cut off the Kansas Turnpike where Moore knew there would be good fossils. I left the car a little late and everyone was crowded around a thin bed. Clearly, there was no room. So I walked down the road and examined cross-bedded sandstone exposed on a ledge. While looking at it, Moore and the rest of the class trooped by and Ray said,
“Klein, you’re wasting your time there. The fossils are down below.”
It was a memorable week. On our return, we had five weeks until the end of the semester to complete our reports and turn them in. Moore gave me a B plus and on the copy he returned he wrote “Very good. You are getting close to an improved understanding of stratigraphy.”
Before the semester ended, a seminal event occurred that changed my life. For me one of the biggest turning point in my career was a colloquium offered by Ed McKee of the U.S.G.S. in April 1956, and a second one by Harold N. Fisk, Vice President of Exploration Research, Humble Oil Research Laboratory (also in 1956).
McKee showed how different assemblages of sedimentary structures characterized some modern depositional environments and it caught my attention. I had not seen any papers published using this approach. I concluded there had to be more to it in terms of depositional process than what McKee presented.
Later, Harold Fisk came to talk on his work on the Mississippi Delta and demonstrated sedimentology was predictive.
Those two colloquia were game-changers for me (See Chapter 29).
The semester ended and I was ready to undertake field work for a Master’s thesis. While working in Newfoundland the previous summer, I observed Precambrian red beds and asked Stu Jenness if the Geological Survey of Canada could support me the next summer while I did a Master’s thesis on them. He told me that might be difficult.
However, Frank Nolan told me there were spectacular outcrops of Triassic red beds along the coast of the Bay of Fundy and suggested I work there. I completed a literature search and discovered also that M.I.T. ran a geology field camp in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The route for an American to do field work in Nova Scotia was through them. I wrote their field camp director, Dr. Walter Whitehead who arranged funding from the Nova Scotia Research Foundation (NSRF) and Nova Scotia Dept. of Mines (NSDM). I broached the subject with Lou Dellwig. He approved the topic and agreed to supervise me.
I arrived in Wolfville, Nova Scotia (NS) in the middle of June, 1956, and lived the entire summer in the only hotel in town. I arranged a favorable long-term rate for room and board, including packed lunches. I discovered the place was occupied mostly by retired widows and a few widowers.
Nova Scotia was far more prosperous than Newfoundland. It was well-networked with Canadian and subsidiary US businesses, phone service was adequate, roads were paved, and people were better off. They also seemed better educated.
The part of Nova Scotia where I completed my Master’s thesis was known as “Evangeline County.” The original French settlers were driven out, forced on British ships after the French-Indian War and shipped to Louisiana. Their descendents are the original “Cajuns” of Louisiana. Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” was inspired by these events.
Every summer, this part of Nova Scotia was visited by people from Louisiana. The Cajuns make a pilgrimage at least once during their lifetime. They either drove individually, or as part of ‘Airstream’ caravans organized in those bays by Wally Bynum
The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world