Memorial to Joseph Murdoch 1890-1973 ROBERT W. WEBB Department of Geological Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106

Geologists do seem to live long, unusual lives and Joseph Murdoch was no exception. Having served as professor of geology from 1928 to 1959 at the Univer­ sity of California, Los Angeles, Joe always had geologi­ cal plans—for the next day, the next month, the next year, the next decade. Although Joe became a professor emeritus in 1959, he worked each day in his laboratory on the UCLA campus. As usual, at 1:00 p.m. on December 31, 1973, he left his laboratory, lunched at the Faculty Club, and started homeward. He passed away en route, his plans terminated in the way he would have wished. In nearly forty years of professional and personal association with Joe, I know that his last thought was his concern for his wife of more than fifty years. Her illness of the previous two years had cur­ tailed their extensive trips. Together they had traveled over much of the world, particularly since his retirement. Dr. Murdoch was a distinguished mineralogist. His training, however, was as a geolo­ gist, and although his bibliography of strictly geological articles is short, he never forgot that the crystallographic studies that became a consuming interest in the last decade of his career were but a small part of the geology of our planet. Joe’s geological orientation is nowhere more evident than in his papers on Brazilian pegmatite minerals and his studies of Crestmore, California, extensive contact metamorphic deposits, the subject of his address in 1960 as he completed his term as the president of the Mineralogical Society of America Joseph was born in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1890. As one of twin sons of John and Abigail (Stuart) Murdoch, his parents reared him in a scientific and outdoor climate. His mother was a teacher, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. His father, a Harvard graduate and a naturalist, taught at Wisconsin, joined the Smithsonian Institu­ tion in the Bureau of Ethnology, was a naturalist and observer for the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, and from 1896 was on the staff of the Boston Public Library. With this scientific tradition and after graduation from Roxbury Latin School in 1907, Joseph entered Harvard University from which he received the B.S. degree in 1911, the M.S. in 1912, and the Ph.D. in 1915, all in geological science. His Ph.D. thesis was in mineragraphy. He had come under the influence of Dr. L. C. Graton, emi­ nent economic geologist, and the friendship was lifelong. Although Joe moved from New England in 1928, he made many trips home, and he often commented on Graton’s influ­ ence in shaping his career and his friendship and concern for more than 50 years. While still a graduate student at Harvard, Murdoch served as an investigator with the Secondary Enrichment Investigation and was a coauthor with Professor L. C. Graton of the first publication of the S.E.I. which was entitled “The Sulphide Ores of Copper- Some Results of Microscopic Study.” In 1916 Murdoch’s book, Microscopical Determi­ 2 THI- GKO LOGICAL SOCILTY OF AMLRICA nation of the Opaque Minerals—An Aid to the Study of Ores, was published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. This work provided the first method for the systematic identifica­ tion of ore minerals in polished surfaces, with tables giving the colors, hardnesses, and etch reactions of 186 minerals. Murdoch’s treatise on the microscopy of polished minerals served as the definitive standard for many years. After a successful, nongeological, business career, Joe returned to geology in 1928 (partly by the persuasion of Professor Graton) when he joined the faculty of the emerging department of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In his years at UCLA he taught geology and mineralogy, specializing in crystallography and crystal chemistry as the UCLA geology faculty, after World War II, became heavily involved in advanced graduate study. Joe required mastery of subject matter, rigorous scholarship, and a dedi­ cation to scientific ideals—qualities that won him the respect of many generations of UCLA graduates. His stamina on field trips (where the lighter side of his somewhat austere New England personality became apparent) won for him from his students the affectionate nickname “Little Joe,” a description of esteem for the man and his worth, as well as an apt description of his short physical stature. UCLA geo-legend is filled with stories of Joe’s field escapades, with his undergraduates trying to beat him to the top of the mountain. It usually meant near-exhaustion for the competitors, only to be left behind as Little Joe kept right on to the next summit. After extensive field collecting of minerals in California, Professor Murdoch published a number of papers on the crystal chemistry of several rare minerals. Murdoch described the occurrence and crystallography of a number of borate minerals from California deposits, including veatchite, ulexite, probertite, and howlite. He became expert on minerals of the world-famous Crestmore quarries of Riverside County, California. In 1960 he summarized his Crestmore research before the Mineralogical Society of America in his address as retiring president of the Society. In this address Murdoch related the history of the Crestmore quarries and described the geological and mineralogical rela­ tions there which had been observed by previous investigators and by Murdoch himself. The remarkable deposits of unusual (and some new) minerals at Crestmore were pro­ duced by contact metamorphic and hydrothermal alteration of the Sky Blue limestone bed adjacent to an intrusion of quartz monzonite porphyry. Murdoch’s work on Crestmore and the suites of minerals that he collected will be featured in a display in the department of geological sciences at UCLA as a Murdoch Memorial. The department is also the recipient of a memorial fund established by the Murdoch family to which UCLA alumni have contributed, and a memorial prize in recog­ nition of scholastic excellence in earth science will be made periodically. In 1948 Professor Murdoch visited a number of beryl-tantalite pegmatite deposits in northeastern Brazil, deposits which contain many phosphate minerals. As a result of these studies, he published two papers in which he described the phosphate minerals and other minerals associated with them and elucidated the paragenetic relations. In the second of these papers he also described a new mineral to which he gave the name chavesite in honor of Dr. Onofre Chavez, an engineer of the Brazilian Departimento Nacional de Producpao Mineral. In 1948, 1956, and 1966 Murdoch and I wrote Minerals of California, annotated cata­ logs of California mineral occurrences and their geology. These appeared at scheduled intervals during the decades of rapid growth in development of mineral products of the state in the expansion following World War II. Published by the California State Division of Mines and Geology, these bulletins are widely used by laymen and professionals interested in minerals and mineral resources. MEMORIAL TO JOSEPH MURDOCH 3 A signal honor that comes to few mineralogists was the naming of a newly found mineral, murdochite, in recognition of his attainments. Murdochite is a copper-lead oxide from the Mammoth mine in Pinal County, Arizona. The mineral was described by mineralogists of the United States Geological Survey “in recognition of Professor Murdoch’s contributions to the science of mineralogy.” It was my joy and privilege to be a faculty colleague of Joe Murdoch for sixteen years at UCLA, where we shared teaching responsibilities in undergraduate geology. I first knew Joe in 1928 and piloted him on his first field trip in California. Our friendship was permanent, and our families shared Sierran hiking and fishing holidays up to two years before his death. Although our teaching fellowship severed in 1948, our professional and personal lives were joined, and with his passing I lost my dearest faculty friend. He is remembered by his students for his thoroughness and patience in and out of the class­ room, and for his compassion and warmth to those friends who had succeeded in parting the curtain that separated taciturn Joe from those around him. Our profession has lost a noble man whose career of teaching, research, and service to geological science spanned nearly 60 years. Joe is survived by his wife, Maude Russell Murdoch, a daughter Barbara (Mrs. Horace P. Phillips) of Whittier, California, and three grandchildren.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH MURDOCH 1913 (and Graton, L. C.) The sulphide ores of copper-Some results of microscopic study: Am. Inst. Mining Engineers Trans., p. 741-811. 1916 Microscopical determination of the opaque minerals-An aid to the study of ores: New York, John Wiley & Sons, 165 p. 1934 Amber in California: Jour. Geology, v. 42, p. 309-310. 1936 Silica-fluorite pseudomorphs: Am. Mineralogist, v. 21, p. 18-32. ------Andalusite in pegmatite: Am. Mineralogist, v. 21, p. 68-69. 1938 (and Webb, R. W.) Notes on some minerals from southern California: Am. Mineralogist, v. 23, p. 349-355. ------A polishing apparatus for ore minerals: Econ. Geology, v. 33, p. 542-553. 1940 (and Webb, R. W.) Notes on some minerals from southern California, II: Am. Mineralogist, v. 25, p. 549-555. 1942 (and Gardner, D.) Lollingite from the Philippine Islands: Econ. Geology, v. 37, p. 69-75. ------(and Webb, R. W.) Notes on some minerals from southern California, III: Am. Mineralogist, v. 27, p. 323-330. 1948 (and Webb, R. W.) Minerals of California: California Div. Mines and Geology Bull. 136, 402 p. 1951 Perovskite: Am. Mineralogist, v. 36, p. 573-580. 1954 (and Webb, R. W.) Minerals in southern California [pt. 1, chap. 7], in Jahns, R. H., ed., Geology of southern California: California Div. Mines and Geology Bull. 170, p. 5-12. 1955 Phosphate minerals of the Borborema Pegmatites, I-Patrimonio: Am. Mineralogist, v. 40, p. 50-63. ------Scawtite from Crestmore, California: Am. Mineralogist, v. 40, p. 505-509. ------Bultfonteinite from Crestmore, California: Am. Mineralogist, v. 40, p. 900-904. 1956 (and Web"b, R. W.) Minerals of California: California Div. Mines and Geology Bull. 173, 452 p. 1958 Phosphate minerals of the Borborema Pegmatites, II-Boqueirao: Am. Mineralogist, v. 43, p. 1148-1156. 1961 Crestmore, past and present: Am. Mineralogist, v. 46, p. 245-257. 4 TIIK (¡1.0LOGICAL SOCILTY 01' AMERICA

1967 (and Geissman, T. A.) I’endletonite, a now hydrocarbon mineral from California: Am. Mineralogist, v. 52, p. 611-616. 1968---(and Geissman, T. A.) I’emllctonite: A correction: Am. Mineralogist, v. 53, p. 1061-1062. ------(and Webb, R. W.) Minerals of California Centennial volume (1866-1966): California Div. Mines and Geology Bull. 189, 559 p.

I am indebted to Dr. George Tunell, Professor Emeritus of Geology, University o f California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Kenneth 1). Watson, Professor o f Geology, University o f California, Los Angeles, for assistance in preparation of this memorial.