Stanley Hart was awarded the Harry H. Hess Medal at the AGU Spring Meeting Honor. Ceremony on May 28,1997, in Baltimore, Md. The Hess medal ...
Eos, Vol. 78, No. 38, September 23, 1997
AGU Hart Receives the Hess Medal PAGES 403, 412 Stanley Hart was awarded the Harry H. Hess Medal at the AGU Spring Meeting Honor Ceremony on May 2 8 , 1 9 9 7 , in Baltimore, Md. The Hess medal recognizes outstanding achievements in research in the constitution and evolution of Earth and its sister planets. The award citations, given by the official pre senter w h o was unable to attend and a standin presenter, and Hart's response are given here.
Citation b y Claude Allegre "Geochemistry has invaded Earth sci e n c e s in a way similar to that in which bio chemistry has invaded the biological s c i e n c e s . This invasion is primarily the result of the work d o n e by a few pioneers, who have created the basis of modern geochemis try. W h e n Stan Hart began his Ph.D. at MIT, isotope geochemistry was engaged in the de velopment of modern geochronology. Stan realized that the most important issue in test ing the validity of the dates given by the vari ous isotopic methods was to develop a comparative geochronology, which led to the question of how the different c h r o n o m e ters b e h a v e when they are subjected to geo logical perturbation, particularly at elevated temperatures. To study this problem he c h o s e a well-posed e x a m p l e , the Eldora stock, where a young pluton intruded on old Precambrian terrain, and he e x a m i n e d the c o n t a c t metamorphism and its effects on the K/Ar and Rb/Sr isotopic systems in various minerals. This study still stands as a classic to day: It formed the basis for understanding age discordancy between isotopic systems and minerals. "Stan then moved to the Carnegie Institu tion of Washington, where the famous quar tet Wetherill, Tilton, Aldrich, and Davis were mapping Precambrian rocks in the United States using comparative geochronology. He immediately b e c a m e a prominent m e m b e r of the team and inspired many geochronological initiatives. With the migration and restructuring that occurred at Carnegie, he b e c a m e the leader of what was then called the 'young Turks' with Tom Krogh, Al Hofmann, Chris Brooks, and others. He was already a legend to young people trying to do modern geochemistry, both at h o m e and abroad.
ill
111!
Converting Potential Temperature to Altitude in the Stratosphere PAGE 410
are plotted against 0 for the months of Janu ary and July. Similar deviations apply for the other months. T h e contours marked by 0,1, etc. are the errors involved if using the above formula. They fall largely in the range from -2 to +2 km.
In many atmospheric studies it has be c o m e useful and customary to use the quasiconservative property potential temperature ( 0 ) as the vertical coordinate, often without giving a corresponding, approximate alti tude. For those who are not experts in strato spheric dynamics, we propose as a useful conversion from 0 to an approximate alti tude z the formula
Reference Fleming, E. L., S. Chandra, J . J . Barnett, and M. Corney, Zonal m e a n temperature, pressure, zonal wind and geopotential height as functions of latitude, Adv.
z*/km 0 / 2 5 K - O . O 4 0 / K .
Space Res., 10, 1211-1259, 1990. —Paul J . Crutzen, Abt. ChemiederAtmosphdre, Max-Planck-Institut fur Chemie; and P. C. Freie, Universitdt Berlin, Institut fur Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany
Using the CIRA-86 climatology [Fleming et al, 1 9 9 0 ] , the errors in making this assump tion are shown in the a c c o m p a n y i n g figure, where the actual heights in kilometers and z
January
E
Z3
JOS
EQ
30N
Latitude
JOS
EQ
JON
Latitude
Fig. 1. Latitude/potential temperature cross sections for January and April: levels of constant geo metric height (km, thin lines) and the difference between geometric and approximate altitudes z (km, thick lines), as functions of latitude and potential temperature. "However, the big test in his c a r e e r oc curred in the late 1960s. Stan, with Jean-Guy Schilling and the late Paul Gast, was o n e of the few geochemists to realize the potential of the field o p e n e d up by plate tectonics and how it was important to study basalts of the o c e a n floor. At the s a m e time, the explora tion of the Moon led Wasserburg to develop a new generation of instruments c a p a b l e of measuring isotope ratios with an extraordi nary precision. Stan and his colleagues at Carnegie had constructed a similar instru ment and used it immediately to study s e a floor basalts. "This marked the start of an extraordinary love affair that s i n c e then has associated Stan Hart and basalts. Without doubt, he is today 'Mr. Basalt' in geochemistry. Stan has stud ied basalts in every environment: mid-oce
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anic ridge basalts, o c e a n i c island basalts, subduction zone basalts, old basalts, Archean basalts. He has also studied basaltic systems in the laboratory, where he was a pio neer in the measurement of partition coeffi cients for trace elements, but more importantly, he was o n e of the first to study quantitatively the effect of diffusion and to understand the fundamental problem of how isotopic memories work. His paper with Al Hofmann in the volume honoring Paul Gast is a keystone for geochemistry, isotopic cod ing with magma, and isotopic memory in sol ids. "All of this work engaged Stan and his col leagues in the development of models of the structure and evolution of the Earth's mantle, and they thereby b e c a m e front runners in what we call c h e m i c a l geodynamics.
Eos, Vol. 78, No. 38, September 23, 1997 when he recognizes a young talent, in his group or abroad, he helps that talent and en courages it. He also likes acronyms. S o m e are good, like MORB; s o m e are less good. "Arguing with Stan has b e e n o n e of the great pleasures for many in the geochemistry community, especially myself, over the last 30 years. Enthusiastic and critical, competi tive and generous, tough and fair, and par ticularly friendly. This is the way all of us admire and love Stan Hart. No o n e in our field is a more appropriate recipient of the Harry Hess M e d a l . " — C l a u d e Allegre, Univer sity of Paris, Paris, France
Citation b y A l b r e c h t H o f m a n n
Through his work with his students and postd o c s at MIT and W o o d s Hole, his contribu tions have b e e n fundamental in various aspects of this field. These are too numerous to mention in detail, but they paved the way to progress in every part of the field. What is perhaps more important is to emphasize how Stan works in geochemistry. First, he takes c a r e of rocks. He knows the rocks well, he is a real expert in modern petrology, and he ap preciates various aspects of modern geology. S e c o n d , he is an expert in the laboratory. He appreciates instruments, he builds instru ments, he loves instruments. With the advent of ion probes, he was o n e of the first to recog nize the potential importance of these instru ments, and m u c h of their modern s u c c e s s in the United States c a n b e attributed to his start in this field with Nobu Shimizu. "On top of this, Stan is an exceptionally tal ented scientist, he c h o o s e s good problems, and he always solves them in an elegant and rigorous way. However, it is as important to recognize his role as a leader. Everywhere he goes, he b e c o m e s a leader, not as a sci e n c e administrator but as an intellectual leader. At Carnegie, he was already a leader. When he moved to MIT, he built the most vig orous group of students in the whole world; now under his influence, W o o d s Hole is o n e of the top centers in the world for modern geochemistry. He has produced more stu dents, postdocs, and 'students at large' than anyone. I don't know anybody w h o has b e e n as influential to the younger generation as Stan Hart. "The reason for this is probably b e c a u s e of his special attitude to s c i e n c e and scien tists. Stan loves s c i e n c e and innovation, and new discoveries e x c i t e him, but the way he practices s c i e n c e is both very competitive and very respectful of the work of other peo ple, particularly those who are younger. Stan especially likes young bright people, and
"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, "You have just heard the official citation, and it is probably obvious that Claude Allegre's prose is special and should not b e delivered by a n y o n e other than the o n e and only 'I Claudius' himself. S o please permit m e now to add a few remarks of my own, if only to c o m p l e m e n t the 'Allegro c o n brio' with a 'Finale presto.' "Stan has b e e n the reigning guru of man tle isotope geochemistry for as long as I c a n r e m e m b e r . He has defined its language, mostly by way of coining acronyms, so m u c h that even seismologists now know that mido c e a n ridge basalts are properly called MORB. Guardians of the English language, such as the Royal Society of London and Na ture, have tried to tame this monster by re naming it m. o. r. b . However, language has its own way: Stan won the battle with the grammarians. He has c o i n e d many other ac ronyms, such as HIMU, DUPAL, and FOZO. S o m e of them, like LoNd, are truly ugly, but Stan m a k e s them stick, whether you like them or not. "By measuring the isotopic composition of strontium in MORB, Stan established the depleted nature of the mantle s o u r c e that feeds these basalts. This is taken so m u c h for granted today that very few people realize where this knowledge c o m e s from. He meas ured this, by the way, using a rather question able method. He simply prepared a c o m p o s i t e of a b u n c h of o c e a n floor basalt samples and measured the Sr isotopic c o m position of this single composite. You get an average this way, but you lose all information about the variability of the population. Well, Stan never worried about that. He knew he had the right answer and, in fact, his answer has stood the test of time extremely well. The depleted nature of the upper mantle is a cru cial item that ties together the origin and evo lution of continents with the evolution of the mantle. "This story about MORB illustrates o n e of Stan's most important characteristics: his al most u n c a n n y intuition about scientific find ings as well as about people. I have on at
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least two o c c a s i o n s trusted that intuition about people against my own judgment, and I have not regretted it. "Very recently, Stan has written a paper on a subject of profound importance; namely, how do melts get out of the mantle? Those of you w h o are in environmental sci e n c e may not find this to b e such an in tensely interesting subject. However, just r e m e m b e r this: if melts did not get out of the mantle, there would not b e m u c h of a crust for us to live on. T h e surface of the Earth would b e totally inhospitable to us, simply be c a u s e it is the igneous processes which have c o n c e n t r a t e d anywhere from 30% to 70% of the total inventory of the Earth's potassium and phosphorous in the crust. Without this potassium and phosphorous, the crust could not sustain even a fraction of the plant, ani mal, and human life that w e take for granted. "Stan's paper is an extremely elegant treat ment using a fractal tree as an analogue. It has so far b e e n ignored by virtually everyone else in the field, probably b e c a u s e it is so sim ple and beautiful. Well, my intuition says that Stan has the right answer to the problem and that the infinitely c o m p l e x processes in volved in melt formation, movement, and ex traction will all conspire to generate a fractal tree, s o that w e c a n understand the overall process without being a b l e to observe all the details. "There is a final item about Stan that I want to emphasize, something to which Claude Allegre has also alluded: Stan is o n e of the few top-level scientists who c a n c o m pete with you and at the s a m e time remain your absolutely loyal friend. I have never known him to knowingly b e n d his ethical standards to serve his competitive advan tage. At a time w h e n the competition for funds has b e c o m e so fierce that the motto of the American Geophysical Union, namely, unselfish cooperation, is under attack almost every day, we n e e d leaders and role models with such standards if we want to k e e p sci e n c e from b e c o m i n g merely a business enter prise such as selling real estate or used cars. "Stan, I know you are disappointed that Claude could not c o m e here to deliver his ci tation; so am I, but at the s a m e time I a m very pleased that he asked m e to read his s p e e c h and to give m e the opportunity to get in a few licks of my own. "Mr. President, may I present Stanley R. Hart to receive the Harry H. Hess Medal." —Albrecht W. Hofmann, Max-Planck-Institut fur Chemie, Mainz, Germany
Response "Mr. President, fellow honorees, col leagues, and guests. Words like honored, grateful, privileged, and appreciative c o m e to mind, but they fall so short! Thank you all. My special thanks to Al Hofmann, the pinch
Eos, Vol. 78, No. 38, September 23, 1997 hitter from the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, for stepping into the hole left by the recent So cialist party victory in France; Al has added many dimensions to the citation written by Claude Allegre, and his last minute heroism in donning b l a c k tie attire is deeply appreci ated (and reinforces again our c o m m o n heri tage as Anthropoided)! "I have a wonderful group of family and friends here with m e today, and this gives m e the greatest pleasure. Pam, my wife and cherished traveling c o m p a n i o n , is easily rec ognizable by her stunning orange gown. No understatement for her tonight! My n u m b e r o n e (eldest) daughter J o l e n e is here, with husband Mark (a.k.a. Harpo). Their young son, Conor, and b a b y Ciara are b a c k in the hotel room. My newly turned 15-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and son, Nathaniel, who is 13, round out the well-dressed family in the first row. They provide the c e n t e r of gravity which e n a b l e s m e to, as s o m e would say, 'go off on tangents' all too frequently. My chil dren literally 'span' my career. J o l e n e was born in P a s a d e n a when I was a graduate stu dent at the California Institute of Technology; Liz and Nate were born in Boston while I was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thus I don't know what it's like to not juggle family and work; I h o p e s o m e part of this medal reflects a measure of suc cess with this and the forbearance of my fam ily for lapses. "It is superfluous to say that my p r e s e n c e at this c e r e m o n y also owes m u c h to the help, support, and stimulation of all the students, colleagues, friends, and provocateurs who 'rode the rails' with m e over the years. No o n e of you has failed to leave a thread in my tapestry: Res Ipsa Loquitur (the thing speaks for itself). "Without burdening you with a roll call, I would particularly like to call attention to the incredible group of c o l l e a g u e s at the W o o d s Hole O c e a n o g r a p h i c Institution who m a k e my present life stimulating and exciting and who contribute crucial signal strength in the s e a of soft-money noise.
In Brief PAGE 402 Hurricane tracking New hurricane fore casting that provides more a c c u r a t e pictures of storms and their m o v e m e n t through the at mosphere could increase warning time and cut down on false alarms that cost millions of dollars in unnecessary evacuations, a c c o r d ing to the National O c e a n i c and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA's new Gulfstream-IV jet produced "the most c o m p l e t e and detailed portrait of a hurricane ever seen" when it flew near Hurri c a n e Guillermo in a test-run last August, ac cording to the agency. S i n c e then, the plane — that c a n fly to the upper troposphere at an
"On first consideration, I thought I might cast my response in nouns and adjectives only, following the precedent set by last year's Bowie Medal citationist, Dev L. Advocate. However, I d e c i d e d that would b e too much like a g e o c h e m i s t trying to do geophysics. I would like to pursue a bit the t h e m e of 'boundary-crossing' s c i e n c e , and its impor t a n c e in today's research milieu. In particu lar, I want to c o m m e m o r a t e and h o n o r Harry Hammond Hess, w h o s e c a r e e r was the em bodiment of crossover Earth s c i e n c e . As Buddington o n c e noted, Harry Hess "'lived five lives contemporaneously.'" Hess worked as an exploration geologist prior to graduate s c h o o l , then did a Ph.D. at Prince ton on the Schuyler alpine peridotite in Vir ginia. (It is thus fitting that the present Hess Medal c o m e s affixed to a small b l o c k of Schuyler serpentinite!) During graduate school, he did gravity work from submarines and acquired a Naval Reserve rating to facili tate further geophysical studies from subma rines. This led to active duty during World War II, ultimately as C o m m a n d e r of an attack transport in the southwest Pacific. Harry's re markable passion for geology is captured by the story of n o n c o m s returning to his ship, af ter landings of extreme hazard, carrying boul ders of basalt b e c a u s e they knew their skipper loved rocks! By leaving the sounding gear (depth recorder) on more or less con tinuously, and with perhaps s o m e liberties in arranging travel routes relative to Naval or ders, Hess was a b l e to vastly extend our knowledge of the bathymetry of the Pacific. From this c a m e the discovery of guyots (drowned islands), which were later to figure in Hess's classic 1962 paper, 'History of O c e a n Basins.' Hess introduced this paper as an '"essay in geopoetry,"' but this was a not untypical modest understatement. This pa per put forth the hypothesis of seafloor spreading, with explicit recognition of the necessary affiliated processes of new o c e a n crust formation and mantle c o n v e c t i o n . In 21 pages, the world of geology was c h a n g e d forever.
altitude of 13,716 m (45,000 ft) — has helped to dramatically improve the forecasts for Hur ricanes Erika and Linda. The jet provides an important platform for measuring the temperature, barometric pres sure, water vapor, wind speed, defining at mospheric troughs, ridges and other factors that could influence the future of a storm, and the steering currents and direction of hur ricanes. It supplements turboprops that fly at altitudes up to 3048 m (10,000 ft). In addition, improved "dropwindsondes" — small cannister-shaped instruments that provide detailed, real-time measurements of storms while parachuting through them — rely on Global Positioning System (GPS) tech nology. Earlier dropwindsondes were tracked by radar.
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"When I first met Harry Hess during a lec ture stop at Princeton in the early 1960s, I was surprised to find a quiet and low-keyed indi vidual (quite unlike the isotope geochemists who formed most of my professional hori z o n s ) . However, the remark I like best about Hess, relayed by Hal J a m e s in his memoir of Hess, was from a Princeton dean who was heard to remark of Harry that "'his bite was worse than his bark!'" "Hess characterized his famous seafloor spreading paper as "'geopoetry.'" Perhaps on this o c c a s i o n you will give me leave to in dulge in s o m e 'geopolitics.' A prime c o n c e r n of scientists today is the ever-increasing fis cal constraints on the c o n d u c t of s c i e n c e and the resulting malaise and mean-spiritedness overtaking this community of scholars. T h e n e e d for formulating budgetary priori ties inevitably leads to the basic s c i e n c e ver sus applied s c i e n c e conundrum. In fact, I don't s e e any strategic difference between basic research (or so-called curiosity-driven research, which trivializes the practice) and applied research (which trivializes the practi tioners); they are o n e and the same, differing only in the term or t i m e s c a l e of the invest ment. Basic s c i e n c e is the tool we use in nur turing both investments: it is the shovel we use to plant our trees, the fertilizer we use to m a k e them flourish, and the saw we use to harvest them. It matters not whether we use the shovel, the fertilizer, or the saw. What matters is our c o m m i t m e n t to strive for excel l e n c e in the endeavor. Trees that grow slowly and trees that grow quickly are both trees; o n e is not better, o n e is not inferior. "Let us go forth with our shovels and saws. Let us attract our constituency to a conversa tion about investment in trees. Let us reason with them to show that before we c a n harvest a tree, we must plant it; before we c a n plant it, we must dig an empty hole in the ground. "For the pleasure I have had in my career, past, present and future—I thank you all."— Stanley R. Hart, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Naomi Surgi, project manager and re search meteorologist at NOAA's National Hur ricane Center, says the jet is vital, especially over tropical o c e a n s , where no direct observ ing platforms may b e located for millions of square kilometers. "There is no substitute for having a direct observing platform out there, and that is what this jet is doing for us," she says. "Having the new data gives [meteorolo gists] a reality c h e c k on what the atmosphere actually is doing. Frank Lepore, also of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, says the jet and new technol ogy may improve the accuracy of determining the direction of storms by 16-30%. Lepore says that e a c h mile requiring evacuation costs about $660,000 in preparedness ex penses — not including lost business or tour-
