Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir. George Devries Klein

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      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 (highest tide of 52’ at Burntoat Head, Hants County, NS) so my work was scheduled around tide tables. On days of mid-day high tides, I generally worked on inland outcrops. On days of early morning and evening high tides, I worked along the coast which had spectacular outcrops.

      I enjoyed good weather most of the summer and completed my mapping, establishing a type section for the Triassic. Using sedimentary structures, I identified possible depositional settings.

      Dr. Whitehead visited me together with Dr. Robert R. Shrock, head of the Geology and Geophysics Department at M.I.T. late in July, 1956. Shrock earned his PhD at Indiana University completing a definitive, widely cited published thesis on Silurian СКАЧАТЬ