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Memorial to James Rogers Gill 1922-1972 W. A. COBBAN U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado 80225 James Rogers Gill was born in Columbus, Ohio, on March 1, 1922. Jim spent most of his early years in the Texas panhandle and was raised by his grand­ parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jessie C. Gill, on their hom e­ stead between Dumas and Dalhart. After graduating from Dumas Public High School in 1939, he attended West Texas State Teachers College in Canyon for two years where he majored in geology and worked part time in the college museum. Jim loved the out-of- doors and searched for artifacts on the high plains of the Texas panhandle during his youth; this resulted in a large and award-winning collection of arrowheads, scrapers, and other artifacts. In 1942 Jim returned to Ohio and lived in Columbus with his mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Cletus J. Buckley. He attended Ohio State University for part of the year before joining the U.S. Army Air Force. After training in gunnery and photography, Jim was sent to Europe where he flew 28 combat missions as a photographer. He was honorably discharged as a Technical Sergeant in October 1945. He then spent most of the following year working as a surveyor for an engineering firm in Columbus. In 1946 Jim enrolled at Ohio University in Athens and received a B.S. degree in geology in 1948. While in Athens, Jim married Mary Ann Sweet, whom he had met earlier at Ohio State University. Jim returned to Ohio State University in 1948 for graduate work and received an M.S. in geology in March 1950. His thesis, “The Flag­ staff Limestone of the Spring City-Manti Area, Sanpete County, Utah,” reflects the interesting summers spent in Utah under the supervision of Dr. Edmund M. Spieker, for whom Jim had great admiration. Jim’s initial work for the U.S. Geological Survey began in July 1949, while he was a part-time graduate student at Columbus, lie worked on the petrology of coal under the direction of James M. Schopf in the Eastern Fuel Division’s Coal Geology Labora­ tory at Ohio State University. This led to an interest in botany, and Jim took several courses in that subject. In the spring of 1951 Jim asked to be “reassigned to some phase of geology in the western United States,” chiefly to gain field experience which he believed would greatly benefit his Geological Survey work. He was sent to Denver to study uranium- bearing coal for the Fuels Branch’s Trace Elements Unit under the supervision of 74 JAMES ROGERS GILL 75 N. M. Denson. Jim’s desire for field experience was fulfilled and much of his time during the next six years was devoted to reconnaissance and detailed mapping of uranium-bearing lignites in Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. Many technical reports were prepared in connection with this work, includ­ ing a beautifully illustrated paper on Tertiary landslides which was published in 1962 by The Geological Society of America. In July 1957, Jim was assigned to the Geological Survey’s Field Geochemistry and Petrology Branch and, thereafter, did much of the field work for the investigation, headed by H. A. Tourtelot, o f the chemical and physical properties o f the Pierre Shale. This project included detailed stratigraphic studies and field sampling o f the Pierre Shale and equivalent rocks in Montana, central and western South Dakota, north­ western Nebraska, and eastern Wyoming. It marked the beginning of Jim’s great contri­ butions to the stratigraphy and geologic history of Upper Cretaceous rocks in the western interior region. He worked on this project for the next six years. It was during this time that the splendid outcrops o f Pierre Shale on the Old Woman anticline near Red Bird, Wyoming, were discovered and described for publication as Professional Paper 393-A. The Pierre Shale in other areas was treated in the following Professional Papers: 728 (Kansas), 392-A (North Dakota), and 424-D (several states). Proceeding from these studies, Jim prepared maps of Upper Cretaceous strandlines in the northern Great Plains area; some of these maps are included in The Geologic A tlas o f the Rocky Mountain Region (Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists), and others will be published in one o f the Geological Survey’s Professional Papers. Jim continued his stratigraphic study of the Pierre Shale arid equivalent rocks as a different project for the Fuels Branch beginning in July 1963. This was a regional stratigraphic study involving not only the original Pierre Shale area but also the Upper Cretaceous area in Colorado and Utah. Chief emphasis was on the intertofiguing rela­ tionships between marine and nonmarine strata in central Montana, central Wyoming, western Colorado, and eastern Utah. In his last two years Jim was investigating these rocks along the Book Cliffs of Colorado and Utah. Jim greatly appreciated the value of fossils in stratigraphy and had an unusual ability to find them. In studying the Pierre Shale and equivalent rocks, he collected mega­ fossils at more than 1,700 localities, in addition to many samples for pollen, fora- miniferal, and mineralogical analyses. This vast amount of material provided invaluable data not only to Jim but to other geologists and will be used for many years to come. All collections were precisely located geographically and, wherever possible, strati- graphically. His careful work led to recognition of important unconformities such as the one at the base of the Teapot Sandstone Member o f the Mesaverde Formation. The ammonite, Scaphites (Hoploscaphites) gilli, named by Cobban and Jeletzky, is a small token of appreciation for Jim’s contributions to Cretaceous stratigraphy. Jim was also interested in geochronology and continually watched for bentonite beds that might produce good K-Ar ages. The ammonite sequence, keyed to K-Ar dates in Professional Paper 393-A , provides a time scale for estimating the duration of trans­ gressions and regressions and the volumes o f sediments per unit of time—subjects of fundamental importance which had been little explored. Jim also used bentonite beds to great advantage in correlation and was able to relate ash beds in nonmarine deposits 76 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA to bentonite beds in marine formations; this was well documented in the fence diagram drawn by him in Professional Paper 393-A. Jim was extremely dedicated to his study of Late Cretaceous stratigraphy and history. His broad knowledge and sound judgment concerning stratigraphic matters was much sought after by geologists engaged in mapping quadrangles in the northern and central Rocky Mountains, as well as by members of the Geologic Names Com­ mittee of the U.S. Geological Survey. For several years Jim was plagued by circulatory problems and he finally under­ went serious operations in the winters of 1970 and 1971. He recovered rapidly from each operation and, by late spring of those years, returned to the field for his usual three or four months’ work on Upper Cretaceous stratigraphy. He seemed in unusually good health when he left for the 1972 field season on June 28. His sudden death in Thermopolis, Wyoming, three days later came as a great shock to his many friends. Jim’s great love for the out-of-doors was reflected by his insistence on long field seasons. He preferred the use of a trailer, not only to get away from centers of popu­ lation, but to increase the time spent in the out-of-doors on his stratigraphic studies. Photography was one of his hobbies, and his notebooks and reports contain many outstanding photographs of outcrops and fossil localities. At home Jim enjoyed stamp collecting and woodworking. He was also interested in youth programs and had been involved with the Boy Scouts of America for 15 years; he attained the rank of Eagle Scout and received the Bronze Palm award. Jim was a Fellow of The Geological Society of America, having joined the Society in 1955. He was a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, and the Colorado Scientific Society. His interests in archeology and botany are reflected in his memberships in the Ohio Archeological and Historical Society, the Ohio Academy of Science, and the American Botanical Society. Jim was a very intelligent and moral man and had many close and lifelong friends. He was most generous and had a delightful sense of humor. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Mary Ann Gill of Arvada, Colorado; his two children, Virginia Susan Gill and Kirk Buckley Gill; his mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Cletus J. Buckley of Columbus, Ohio; his foster sister, Olive Ann Gill of Washington, D.C.; and his foster brothers, Andy H. Gill o f Columbus, Ohio, and Sidney Gill of San Diego, California. BIBLIOGRAPHY 01 JAMKS R. GILL 1952 (with Hail, W. J., Jr.) Radioactive carbonaccous shale and lignite deposits in the Goose Creek district, Cassia County, Idaho, in Summary of uranium-bearing coal, lignite, and carbona­ ceous shale investigations in the Rocky Mountain region during 1951: U.S. Gcol. Survey TKM 341-A, p. 32-37. ------ Search for and geology of uranium in carbonaceous rocks-Reconnaissance in part of Colo­ rado, Wyoming and Montana, and District studies, Slim Buttes area, South Dakota, in Search for and geology of radioactive deposits, semiannual progress report, June 1 to November 30, 1952: U.S. Geol. Survey Trace Elements Inv. Rept. 310, p. 120-126, 149. JAMES ROGERS GILL 77 1953 Uranium in carbonaceous rocks-Mendenhall area, Harding County, South Dakota, in Geo­ logic investigations of radioactive deposits, semiannual progress report, classified data, June 1 to November 30, 1953: U.S.

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