Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir. George Devries Klein

lab work and write my thesis. My goal was in sight.

      I still needed additional funds. Art Bloom was now on the faculty and taught Science II. He hired me to grade exams. I discovered that the Law School dining room offered waiterships. If one waited on tables for one meal, one received three free meals a day. I applied and took the breakfast shift until December. Flint arranged a private office for me in an adjacent building where the department had empty office space.

      Because I worked exclusively on my thesis, I had fewer interactions with the entering class than during previous years. I met Pierre Biscaye (BS, Wheaton College) who worked with Karl Turekian and became a senior scientist at Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University, Terry Offield (BS, Virginia Tech, MS. Univ. of Illinois) who worked with John Rodgers and returned to the USGS from where he took an educational leave, and Brad Hall (BS, Univ. of Maine, MS. Brown), who worked with John Rodgers and John Sanders and then taught at the University of Maine.

      Yale drew geology students from all over the USA and many parts of the world. Yale was a national university in the geosciences. It was a unique place with a great faculty, good equipment, outstanding library resources, and outstanding collections. What it lacked then was a decent geology building. Kirtland Hall was a late 19^th century period piece that needed major renovation or replacement if Yale remained competitive during the rest of the 20^th century and beyond. The department moved into a new building in 1964.

      The annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1959 was held in Pittsburgh, PA. I presented my first scientific paper to a professional society dealing with the sedimentary structures in the Blomidon Formation. I characterized it as a lake deposit and explained why.

      The speaker before me was Louis M. Cline of the University of Wisconsin who tried to present a 10 minute paper on Carboniferous turbidites of the Ouachita fold belt with 40 slides shown in parallel on two screens using two projectors. In those days, slides were manually placed into and extracted from metal holders and pushed in and out. The union projectionist was having a difficult time. I handed him my slides for a single screen.

      While Cline talked, I introduced myself to the session chair and told him I might need more than ten minutes. By this time, Cline had already passed 16 minutes and the session chairman assured me that I could take all the time I needed.

      As I walked to the podium, I saw Ray Moore walk into the room where the session was held. That gave me a real morale boost because I knew how busy he was, yet he was willing to come hear the first paper presented by a former classroom student who left Kansas.

      I presented the paper and Bruce Heezen (BS, Iowa, PhD Columbia, marine geology; Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory), the eminent marine geologist at Columbia’s Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory, commented that this was an important paper because lakes acted dynamically like ocean basins and I proved it. I thanked him for his remarks.

      I ran into Moore later that evening and with his usual expressionless face, he said, “Klein that was an excellent paper. Keep up the good work.” John Sanders was with me when he made that comment. Both Moore and Heezen literally made my day.

      Steadily, I worked on my thesis. I wrote two chapters at night while in the field and Sanders’ critiqued the drafts. By January, I finished lab work and only had to write the remainder of the thesis. The faculty changed thesis submittal ground rules and sent a memo stating that candidates had to turn in final drafts by March 10 for the committee to review and make changes in order to graduate in June, 1960. Once cleared, we revised, got the thesis bound and defended.

      Basically, I wrote my thesis in a month. I wrote a chapter and drafted illustrations from Monday through Sunday working steadily from 8:00 am until midnight. Sanders always was away from his office, so I checked his teaching schedule. He taught an 8:00 am class and at 8:45 am on Monday, I was at his classroom door. When class was over, I handed him a chapter. To his credit, he reviewed it immediately and returned the draft with suggested changes by 2 PM that afternoon. It was hard work, but I finished in time and turned the final draft of my thesis in to John who then circulated it to the committee.

      John Rodgers was on sabbatical in Paris in 1960, and his place was taken by a visiting professor, S. Warren Carey (PhD, Sydney; structural geology and tectonics) from the University of Tasmania. Carey was controversial in science and behavior and within a month of arrival, antagonized the entire faculty and most of the graduate students.

      Carey replaced Rodgers on my committee and after reading my thesis draft, he asked me to meet him on a Saturday morning in mid-March to review it. His office was on the third floor of Kirtland Hall. Carey spoke with a booming voice that was heard all over the building. We discussed the thesis. We reached a point when he said to me, “Look young man, if you want to be impertinent, you can take your thesis and go.” I told him no impertinence was intended, suggested that because the issue was in petrology, why not defer the matter to Walton who was also on the committee, and would read the thesis next. He agreed.

      We finished our discussion and I went down the stairs not knowing I attracted an audience. The “Rats Nest” was on the second floor and Burchfiel, Benson, Ashmead, Carr, Hansen, Field, Platt, and Ames were at the door having heard Carey’s remarks about impertinence. As I approached they burst into applause.

      I met with Walton and he sustained my position on the issue Carey had raised.

      During the year, I looked for a job in a research university. I was interviewed at Brown University and the University of South Carolina. Alonzo Quinn, the chairman at Brown, wrote they hired someone else, but stated that “your talk was presented in a masterful way.” South Carolina verbally offered me the job but retracted it a week later. Jobs were few during the 1959-60 recession.

      With no academic job offers, I decided to look for a job at an oil company research lab. I interviewed with Conoco’s Research lab but they hired Charlie Ellis. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) held its annual meeting in Atlantic City in Mid-April, so I attended. I was offered a job with Lion Oil, and interviewed with Pan American Research. The Pan-Am representatives assured me an offer would be made but I found out later that the lab management fired A. F. Frederickson, Vice President of geological research, and hiring was frozen.

      My conversation with the Pan-Am people had an eaves-dropper, Bernie Rolfe of Sinclair Research Tulsa, OK. He wrote a letter inviting me to apply. I did. Nearly two weeks after my thesis defense I was flown to Tulsa, interviewed, and left with a letter of offer in hand. I accepted starting on September 15, 1960.

      When returning to New Haven, I received startling news. Ashmead failed his qualifying written and oral exam and was told to leave. Rogers wasn’t around to save him, and Walton didn’t back him. A year earlier, Hansen failed the comprehensive written exam but was given a reprieve and passed on his second attempt. It made him a little more focused.

      My thesis defense was in the middle of May, 1960. The format at Yale was one presented a 45 minute talk followed by a 15 minute question period. Then the faculty voted in committee. Two defenses were held each day. Gregory, as graduate advisor, introduced each candidate.

      On the day of my defense, Lucian Platt defended first. He gave his talk about structural geology in the Taconic region in New York. It was acceptable research. However, he and Carey had reached a major disagreement, and Carey started going after him hard. After five minutes, Flint stood up and turned to Carey (who was to Flint’s left and behind him a few seats over) and said, “Mr. Carey, perhaps you may not know that in an American University we allow a student the latitude to develop any hypothesis and interpretation they chose. As a faculty we must see if that student can properly defend it with facts and a reasonable analysis and careful thought. Mr. Platt has done so.” Flint sat down and there were no more questions.

      I was then introduced by Gregory and walked to the podium to give my thesis defense lecture. It was a bitter-sweet moment. I presented talks in that lecture hall for Journal Club, introduced a colloquium speaker, attended colloquia and previous PhD thesis defenses, and was facing my collective professors and graduate student colleagues as a group for the last time. I proceeded to give my talk. It went smoothly having presented it at two interviews and having practiced