The Life and Scientific Work of William R. Evitt \(1923-2009\)
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Palynology, 2016 Vol. 40, No. S1, 2À131, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916122.2016.1147792 The life and scientific work of William R. Evitt (1923À2009) James B. Ridinga* and Joyce Lucas-Clarkb aBritish Geological Survey, Environmental Science Centre, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, United Kingdom; bClark Geological Services, 1023 Old Canyon Road, Fremont, California 94536, USA Occasionally (and fortunately), circumstances and timing combine to allow an individual, almost singlehandedly, to generate a paradigm shift in his or her chosen field of inquiry. William R. (‘Bill’) Evitt (1923À2009) was such a person. During his career as a palaeontologist, Bill Evitt made lasting and profound contributions to the study of both dinoflagellates and trilobites. He had a distinguished, long and varied career, researching first trilobites and techniques in palaeontology before moving on to marine palynomorphs. Bill is undoubtedly best known for his work on dinoflagellates, especially their resting cysts. He worked at three major US universities and spent a highly significant period in the oil industry. Bill’s early profound interest in the natural sciences was actively encouraged both by his parents and at school. His alma mater was Johns Hopkins University where, commencing in 1940, he studied chemistry and geology as an undergraduate. He quickly developed a strong vocation in the earth sciences, and became fascinated by the fossiliferous Lower Palaeozoic strata of the northwestern United States. Bill commenced a PhD project on silicified Middle Ordovician trilobites from Virginia in 1943. His doctoral research was interrupted by military service during World War II; Bill served as an aerial photograph interpreter in China in 1944 and 1945, and received the Bronze Star for his excellent work. Upon demobilisation from the US Army Air Force, he resumed work on his PhD and was given significant teaching duties at Johns Hopkins, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He accepted his first professional position, as an instructor in sedimentary geology, at the University of Rochester in late 1948. Here Bill supervised his first two graduate students, and shared a great cameraderie with a highly motivated student body which largely comprised World War II veterans. At Rochester, Bill continued his trilobite research, and was the editor of the Journal of Paleontology between 1953 and 1956. Seeking a new challenge, he joined the Carter Oil Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during 1956. This brought about an irrevocable realignment of his research interests from trilobites to marine palynology. He undertook basic research on aquatic palynomorphs in a very well-resourced laboratory under the direction of one of his most influential mentors, William S. ‘Bill’ Hoffmeister. Bill Evitt visited the influential European palynologists Georges Deflandre and Alfred Eisenack during late 1959 and, while in Tulsa, first developed several groundbreaking hypotheses. He soon realised that the distinctive morphology of certain fossil dinoflagellates, notably the archaeopyle, meant that they represent the resting cyst stage of the life cycle. The archaeopyle clearly allows the excystment of the cell contents, and comprises one or more plate areas. Bill also concluded that spine-bearing palynomorphs, then called hystrichospheres, could be divided into two groups. The largely Palaeozoic spine-bearing palynomorphs are of uncertain biological affinity, and these were termed acritarchs. Moreover, he determined that unequivocal dinoflagellate cysts are all Mesozoic or younger, and that the fossil record of dinoflagellates is highly selective. Bill was always an academic at heart and he joined Stanford University in 1962, where he remained until retiring in 1988. Bill enjoyed getting back into teaching after his six years in industry. During his 26-year tenure at Stanford, Bill continued to revolutionise our understanding of dinoflagellate cysts. He produced many highly influential papers and two major textbooks. The highlights include defining the acritarchs and comprehensively documenting the archaeopyle, together with highly detailed work on the morphology of Nannoceratopsis and Palaeoperidinium pyrophorum using the scanning electron microscope. Bill Downloaded by [British Geological Survey] at 05:19 01 August 2016 supervised 11 graduate students while at Stanford University. He organised the Penrose Conference on Modern and Fossil Dinoflagellates in 1978, which was so successful that similar meetings have been held about every four years since that inaugural symposium. Bill also taught many short courses on dinoflagellate cysts aimed at the professional community. Unlike many eminent geologists, Bill actually retired from actively working in the earth sciences. His full retirement was in 1988; after this he worked on only a small number of dinoflagellate cyst projects, including an extensive paper on the genus Palaeoperidinium. Keywords: acritarchs; biography; dinoflagellates and dinoflagellate cysts; history; palaeontological techniques; trilobites; United States; William R. Evitt 1. Introduction during the modern era of palynology, i.e. since the late William R. (‘Bill’) Evitt (1923À2009) was unequivo- 1950s. He was the principal worker of his generation cally the leading researcher on fossil dinoflagellates on the morphology of these complex, fascinating and *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Ó 2016 National Environment Research Council (NERC) À British Geological Survey (BGS). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. Palynology 3 highly useful palynomorphs over four decades from the summarised in Table 1. The author citations of the spe- early 1960s to the end of the twentieth century. Bill was cies mentioned in the text are given in Appendix 4. the first to realise, and definitively demonstrate, that the vast majority of the dinoflagellate fossil record rep- resents the resting cyst stage of the life cycle, using the 2. Early Days (1923À1940) excystment aperture as the key line of evidence. He 2.1. Family background also determined that the fossil record of the dinoflagel- lates is highly selective. Furthermore, the fact that William Robert Evitt II was born on 9 December 1923 most Mesozoic and Cenozoic hystrichospheres (spine- in Baltimore, Maryland, United States (Figure 1), and bearing palynomorphs) are, in fact, dinoflagellate cysts was named after his paternal grandfather. He was the was discovered by Bill based on detailed and exhaus- only child of Raymond Wilson (‘Wils’) Evitt and Elsa tive morphological analyses of well-preserved material. Schwarz Evitt, and was always known as Bill. Ray- He also termed the remainder of the hystrichospheres, mond Evitt had British heritage; by contrast, his moth- i.e. those with no demonstrable dinoflagellate affinity, er’s family, as the name Schwarz strongly suggests, was acritarchs. Bill’s main scientific passion was the German and they were part of a large German commu- detailed morphology of dinoflagellate cysts. For exam- nity in Baltimore. Bill’s maternal grandfather owned ple, he analysed the excystment aperture in consider- the Schwarz Toy Store in Baltimore; unfortunately, he able detail and coined the term ‘archaeopyle’ for this died when Bill was only two years old. Bill also hardly important feature. Bill also undertook groundbreaking knew his maternal grandmother, who died two years fine-scale morphological studies of important genera after her husband’s passing. such as Ceratium, Dinogymnium, Nannoceratopsis, Bill’s father had studied civil engineering at Johns Palaeoperidinium and Peridinium. Hopkins University in Baltimore, but never practiced Bill had an active, long and productive life, and was because he undertook military service in World War I not exclusively a palynologist. He also worked on Ordo- immediately after graduating. Raymond served as a pilot for the final months of the war, joining Edward vician trilobites and palaeontological techniques, and th undertook a successful spell of aerial photograph inter- V. Rickenbacker’s famous 94 Fighter Squadron pretation during World War II for which he received (‘Hat in the Ring’) of the US Army Air Force (Woolley the Bronze Star (Appendix 1). Bill was also a consum- 2001) and was based in France. After the conflict mate teacher of the earth sciences. He trained numerous ended, Raymond found it difficult to find a meaningful undergraduates and graduate students (Appendix 2), career, and took up jobs in insurance and real estate. ran a highly successful two-week course on fossil dino- Elsa Evitt was a talented artist, specialising in oil paint- flagellates and published 64 scientific contributions ing (Figures 2, 3), who trained at the Maryland Art including some high-impact papers and two major text- Institute in Baltimore as did her mother before her. books (Appendix 3; Damassa & Leffingwell 2009). Bill first lived in the house belonging to his mater- He studied geology as an undergraduate and as a nal grandparents, the Schwarzes, until the age of four. graduate student between 1940 and 1948 at Johns Hop- The house was 3 Prospect Circle in Windsor Hills, one kins University in Baltimore, Maryland; his studies of the western suburbs of Baltimore.