Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir. George Devries Klein
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found out recently that one of my fellow students who arrived that fall, Bill Fisher, was similarly treated3. While an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University, Bill applied to Kansas and was offered a TA. However, he was drafted and went on active duty explaining in a letter to KU he would return in two years. When he arrived at KU, Thompson did not give him the TA promised before. Two weeks later, Moore gave him a research assistantship3
Bill Fisher and I also got acquainted. He was married so I only saw him during the day. He came from Southern Illinois University and then served for two years in the US Army. He earned a PhD with Ray Moore and went to the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. There he pioneered the concept of Depositional Systems, Systems tracts, and contributed to the development of sequence stratigraphy. He also became Bureau Director as well as a part-time professor of geology at the University of Texas at Austin. He served for two years in the Ford Administration as Assistant Secretary of Energy. Later, he went full-time at the University of Texas, was chairman of the geology department for a brief period, and also served as Director of its Geology Foundation. He was directly instrumental in the negotiations that led to the $253 Million bequest from John A. Jackson which led to establishing the Jackson School of Geosciences there. Bill was its ‘inaugural’ dean.3
That fall, I befriended some of the newly admitted graduate students. One was Mahlon Ball who returned from Military Service. He earned a BS and MS from Kansas and returned to work with Ray Moore on a PhD. Mahlon worked for Shell Research, and then made a career as a marine geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Over Christmas break, I applied to Yale, Princeton, Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin.
On my way back from Nova Scotia during early September, 1956, I met Richard F. Flint (PhD. Chicago, Quaternary Geology; Yale), director of graduate studies in the geology department at Yale. He spelled out the ground rules if I was accepted. If I did well, financial aid was assured for three years only because I would come in with a Masters. In other words, I had three years to get the PhD done. I raised the possibility of continuing my research in Nova Scotia and explained the grants I had received from the Nova Scotia government. He assured me that the department would likely approve the thesis topic because few Yale geology graduate students came with financial support for their thesis field work. We had a good meeting.
I also revisited Franklin Van Houten at Princeton and explained my research goals and discussed the McKee and Fisk colloquia. He was supportive of my continuing my Nova Scotia research if accepted.
Northwestern and Wisconsin were basically back-up applications. I heard that Wisconsin hired someone to replace Twenhofel, but was given no details.
Second term I took Hambleton’s economic geology course (he offered three semesters) and two credits of Master’s thesis.
I interviewed oil companies in the fall and Humble offered me a job in Midland, TX. I declined after receiving a letter from Yale offering me graduate admission, a teaching assistantship, a tuition-and-fee waiver, and an additional stipend of $1,000.00. I immediately accepted Yale’s offer and also wrote Princeton, Northwestern and Wisconsin to withdraw my application. Northwestern and Wisconsin wrote back wishing me well and thanked me for letting them know promptly.
I spent most of my time during the second semester writing my thesis and drafting illustrations. I finally completed it near the end of March and gave it to Louis Dellwig. Although it took a month, he returned it after a long working session during which he spent considerable time showing how to rewrite the text. The grammar was fine. The organization and tortuous logic needed refining. It was a valuable lesson that stayed with me my entire career. Late in May, 1957, I completed a general Master’s oral exam.
With my master’s degree completed, I packed my belongings into my car and drove home. I did not attend commencement and the degree was mailed later.
After briefly visiting my parents, I returned to Nova Scotia to expand the scope of my work on the Triassic of Nova Scotia. Support was continued by the NSRF and the NSDM, but was told I may not get such support in the future. A spring election resulted in a change in government. A different political party took power and because I was funded by the previous regime, support was not guaranteed. I expanded my mapping and research into the Annapolis Valley and into Hants County.
At the end of the summer, I returned home and prepared to pursue my PhD at Yale.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Raymond C. Moore clearly taught me the art of scholarship, the importance of commitment as a scientist, the importance of long, hard work, the importance of setting and achieving goals, the importance of doing one’s homework and knowing what one was talking about, how to stay focused, the importance of brevity, the importance of establishing and working towards 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 things sometimes can be.
2. After meeting with Bob Shrock and Walter Whitehead, I realized that I was given a second chance after my experience at Hopkins. I learned then and later, second chances often come throughout one’s life and one should rise to meet them.
3. When a student encounters a split faculty as I did at Kansas, it’s best to be polite to everyone and not allow oneself to be caught up in any warfare that might occur. It was better to duck, hide, and keep working and stay with one’s objectives and hold true to one’s aspirations. I saw several students hurt by their involvement in faculty fights.
4. In a department with a faculty and course offerings that were variable, it was critical to pick and chose in terms of one’s goals.
5. Attend colloquia. They are the gateway to broader opportunities.
6. Moore told his class “Always go into an uncrowded field” to get noticed quickly for the research one completed. I did. Sedimentology as practiced today was in its infancy in the 1950’s through the middle 1960’s. I capitalized by starting and publishing my research during those early years.
POSTCRIPT #1. Within a month of arrival at the Illinois Geological Survey in 1957, M.L. Thompson suffered a stroke which disabled him permanently. During 1970, I was walking in the Lincoln Square mall in Urbana, IL, and saw Thompson and his wife. I approached them and asked if they remembered me. Thompson stared at me and had no recollection. Mrs. Thompson remembered me. I told her I was now on the faculty at the University of Illinois. I never saw them again, but read Luke’s obituary in 1985.
Chapter 7
Yale University and Nova Scotia (1957-1960)
Yale University was originally founded in 1701 as the “Collegiate School.” The name was changed to Yale University when a Welsh merchant, Elihu Yale, donated proceeds from the sale of 17 bales of goods, and a portrait of King George I to endow the institution. He did so on the condition that they change their name to reflect his bountiful generosity.
Yale is the third oldest institution of higher learning in the USA and over time grew in stature and reputation. The Yale geology department awarded the first American PhD in the field to William North Rice, a Wesleyan University graduate who returned there to teach (Chapter 4). The Yale geology department had many renowned scholars on its faculty including Othneil Marsh, a vertebrate paleontologist, Charles Schuchert, an eighth-grade self-educated paleontologist who earlier assisted the legendary James Hall, Benjamin Silliman, a mineralogist, and James Dwight Dana, a mineralogist who also published in the field of tectonics.
Prior to 1950, famous geologists teaching there included Chester R. Longwell in structural geology, Allan Bateman, who discovered the Kennecott Mine, in economic geology, Adolph Knopf in petrology, Carl Dunbar in paleontology and stratigraphy, and Richard Foster Flint, a quaternary geologist. Dunbar, who retired in 1959, and Flint were, in effect, my only contact with Yale’s illustrious past, although I met Bateman and Longwell. Flint was much younger than the other three and retired in 1971.
Yale geology graduates were amongst many leaders in the field. They included Stuart Weller, a professor