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Chapter 8

The Keuper Marl of the UK (Summer 1960)

Walter Whitehead retired from M.I.T. in 1957. His job as M.I.T’s director of field camp in Nova Scotia and Professorship was accepted by Arthur J. Boucot, a paleontologist at the U.S.G.S. Art earned a BS and PhD in geology from Harvard. He fought in World War II as a tail gunner in allied bombing missions over Germany and as a result, developed a crusty, fearless, and direct style.

During the summer of 1959, Art invited me to the M.I.T camp in Antigonish to give an evening colloquium on my research. When I was finished, a guest, Dr. W. Stuart McKerrow (BSc, Glasgow, PhD Oxford, paleontology; Oxford) asked questions. Stuart was an Oxford lecturer who kept asking how similar my findings in the Nova Scotia Triassic were to the Keuper Marl of the UK. I answered some of his questions and then said, “Sir, let me ask you a question. Has anyone done any sedimentology on the Keuper Marl?” Stuart responded, “No, why don’t you raise some grant money and come over and do it yourself.”

Art, Stuart and I then adjourned to Art’s cabin for drinks with Art’s wife, Bobbie (Barbara), and we discussed Stuart’s suggestion. I reviewed it later with John Sanders and applied to Sigma Xi for field expense money. They awarded me $750 and my parents, as a graduation gift, offered to pay for my plane ticket and give me another $500.

I bought a cheap charter flight through Yale University on Trans International Airlines (TIA). After leaving New York in June, 1960, and a refueling stop in Iceland, we detoured to Shannon, Ireland, for engine repairs.

We arrived in Shannon before sundown and the landing strip had about 12 fire engines parked and ready to roll. TIA provided meal coupons for food no better than the tuck shops at Scotch College. We waited. I sent Stuart McKerrow a telegram to let him know I was delayed.

We left at 7:00 am next morning and arrived three hours later at Gatwick Airport. From there, I took connecting trains to London and in Oxford I took a cab to the University Museum (Oxford’s Geology Building). On the way, the driver asked (my phonetics), “Oh Sai, what univoisity in America did you goe to, Harvard or Yale?” I told him Yale and realized if it had been elsewhere he would have been lost.

Oxford University, as the reader knows, is one of the oldest universities in the western world. Its origins were in the classics and liberal arts. Oxford is a confederation of colleges where the power of the institution resides. Admission as an undergraduate is to one of the colleges where nearly all their instruction is given. Thus, much duplication of effort exists. Instruction is through a combination of lectures and weekly individual tutorials with faculty, even in the sciences. Exams are given only at the end of each term, and an overall general comprehensive exam is given to candidates to earn a BA- or BS-equivalent degree.

Science Departments appeared at Oxford during the 19^th century. Their acceptance was slow because most science faculty lacked a connection to an established college. Much political effort was required to appoint science faculty to various colleges so degrees could be conferred through the colleges even though academic work was done in these new departments crossing college lines. Graduate programs as known in US universities were established later and also required connections into an existing college to confer degrees. Eventually, Oxford established special graduate colleges during the 1960’s.

I met McKerrow and stayed at his house. He had a nice wife and three sons. I spent a few days reading literature and planning places to work. I bought a second-hand moped and learned to drive it so I could travel in the field.

I was now ready to start field work. That meant taking trains to major communities, and riding my moped to outcrops, staying overnight in small hotels. I loaded the moped on the baggage car, entered a passenger compartment and on arrival, offloaded the moped. It was the same drill when connect with several different trains.

My first stop was the coastal cliffs at Sidmouth, a beach resort community on the Dorset Coast. The outcrops were spectacular and I got off to a good start. Similarities to the Blomidon were obvious.

I returned to Oxford because my father invited me to meet him in Paris for the weekend. I went there on Friday. We went to his favorite museums and restaurants, and at night, his favorite night clubs in Montmartre. I admit I was not all that impressed. There were still signs, 16 years later, of damage from World War II and the recovery was hardly complete. The shows at Montmartre were not much better than the strip joints in St. Louis and Kansas City which I visited occasionally with friends during graduate school. I said little not wanting to offend my father. I ate well while in Paris.

Returning to the UK, I proceeded to look at Keuper Marl quarries and outcrops in the Midlands. I also took a side trip to the Welsh Coast to examine Ordovician turbidites.

Later, I attended a weekend field meeting of the Yorkshire Geological Society focusing on Permian Rocks. Sam Carey attended also and told Sir Kingsley Dunham, head of the geology department at Durham University, and later Director of the British Geological Survey, that I was the best geology graduate student he met at Yale. I was flattered, but wondered if the Brits also had the same view of Carey as the Yale geology faculty.

My last field area was on the Island of Arran. Afterwards I went to Edinburgh and drove my moped to Sicar Point to see the “Great Unconformity” described centuries ago by Hutton.

That year, the International Geological Congress was held in Copenhagen. I wrote to register and was put on a wait list because I registered late. Eventually the organizing committee agreed to let me come but I had to prove that I arranged housing on my own. The Danish tourist office found me a private bed-and- breakfast. It was 45 minutes by trolley from the convention site.

I attended technical sessions and met many leaders of international geology. John Sanders and John Rodgers were there. Rodgers acted surprised that I found a job. One of Sanders’s graduate school classmates, Heike Ignatius (BS University of Helsinki; PhD Yale, Quaternary geology) also attended. He worked for the Geological Survey of Finland and eventually became director during the 1980’s.

As a government official, Heike stayed at the Finnish Embassy and decided the Finnish Embassy should host a Yale alumni cocktail party. Six of us attended. They offered canapés and aquavit. After 15 minutes, the canapés disappeared and they only served acquavit. To say I was feeling warm and no pain was an understatement. I made it my bed-and-breakfast place with no difficulty, however.

I recall a paper by Dr. Kingma, a New Zealand geologist who challenged the turbidite paradigm. Ph. H. Kuenen challenged the speaker during the question period. The speaker interrupted Kuenen at which point Kuenen responded “I did not interrupt you when you gave your silly talk, so don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.” There was a hushed silence. When Kuenen finished, the session chair, Dr. Rudolph Trumpy of Switzerland said words to the effect that there are still differences of interpretation on this topic and we needed to pay attention and debate them. Apparently, not all European professors were dogmatic or believed they held a monopoly on truth.

Later Sanders introduced me to Kuenen, but Kuenen lived up to his reputation as being totally uninterested in students and young PhD’s and barely talked with me.

I saw John Sanders and Heike Ignatious again at lunch. They were talking about one evening in 1951 in New Haven. Both attended a movie and were stopped by some hoodlums demanding money. Heike stepped up to one, lifted him off the ground by the scruff of his neck, and threw him at the others saying, “Go back to your mother’s milk.” The hoodlums ran away.

John then explained that Heike fought on the Russian front during the Russian-Finish War of 1941 and sustained a serious head injury. A major part of his skull was a metal plate.

I returned to Oxford, packed, went back to Gatwick, and returned to the USA.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. When working overseas, time schedules are different and things move more slowly. My mother told me later, “What you save in money, you lose in time.”

2. When budgeting for overseas work trips or other travel, expect to spend at least 20 to 30% more and plan accordingly.

3. When attending International conferences, expect everything to be more formal. In particular, expect academicians to be somewhat more dogmatic. Allow time to develop collegial working relations, particularly with continental Europeans. It is easier to establish collegial relations with the British.