Memorial to John Everts Lamar 1897-1979
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Memorial to John Everts Lamar 1897-1979 H. B. WILLMAN Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois 61820 John Everts Lamar was recognized internationally as a geologist and specialist in industrial minerals. For nearly 50 years he provided the people of Illinois, through their State Geological Survey, with informa tion about the availability and use of the industrial minerals of the State. After his retirement in 1966, he continued to share his broad knowledge of the geology of Illinois with those who followed in his footsteps, until only a few months before his death in Urbana, Illinois, on August 24, 1979, at the age of 81. “J. E.,” as he was known to associates and friends throughout the country, was an active member in several professional and scientific organizations, in cluding the Industrial Minerals Division and the Society of Mining Engineers of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, the Society of Economic Geologists, the Illinois Society of Engineers, the American Ceramic Society, Sigma Xi, and the Illinois Academy of Science. He was a charter member of the Geochemical Society and a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. He received the Hal Williams Hardinge Award of the AIME in 1971. The citation reads “ For creatively conducting and directing basic and applied research directed to enhancing the utilization and development of industrial minerals, especially those native to the State of Illinois.” He also received the Distinguished Member Award of the Society of Mining Engineers and a certificate of appreciation for his participation in the development of plans showing the contribution of science to industrial development at the Chicago World’s Fair Centennial Celebration in 1933. While a student at the University of Chicago in 1918, J. E. taught military mapping to army trainees and, in the summer, was employed by the Illinois State Geological Survey as a field assistant to J Harlen Bretz in mapping the Camp Grant area at Rock ford, then a major training center of the U.S. Army. He also worked for the Survey in the summer of 1919 in a study of limestone for road materials. On graduating from the University of Chicago with a B.S. degree in 1920, J. E. became a full-time employee of the Survey. Except for teaching one semester at the University of Illinois, he spent the rest of his career with the Survey. He was an associ ate geologist in charge of nonmetallic mineral studies from 1923 to 1926 when he be came geologist and head of the Nonfuels Division, which was renamed the Industrial Minerals Division in 1939. The division, later called a section, continued to cover the entire field of nonfuel minerals until 1945 when clay resources and clay mineral technology were made a separate section. When J. E. came to the Illinois Geological Survey, it was only 15 years old and had only a small staff of full-time geologists. During his first few years, he gained experi ence with a variety of assignments. He was the Survey’s first micropaleontologist, studying ostracodes of the Chesterian shales. He was the Survey’s first petroleum 2 GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA engineer, studying sources of drilling muds and corrosion of oil-field well casing and tubing in the mid-1920s. At about the same time, his study of karst topography and sewage disposal in the Alton area was an early entrance of the Survey into the field of engineering geology. He set up the Survey’s first sedimentation laboratory, one of the earlier ones in the country. His field studies during the early years included the exami nation of limestone and dolomite quarries in northern Illinois and the geologic mapping and stratigraphy of the Carbondale quadrangle in southern Illinois. Study of the industrial minerals resources in Illinois was certainly a challenge to the young geologist. At least 18 different kinds of rocks and minerals have been used com mercially in Illinois in 30 or more industries producing products for hundreds of uses. He responded to the challenge through the years with 90 publications. In addition, 127 unpublished manuscripts by J. E. Lamar are on file at the Illinois Geological Sur vey. His publications are impressive not only in abundance but in the variety of subjects and their lasting usefulness. Although J. E.’s scientific contributions are largely in the field of economic ge ology, he also made significant contributions in sedimentation and stratigraphy. He was a very practical person, and in evaluating the merits of research, he frequently raised the question, “What’s it good for?” which perhaps is the trademark of a dedicated eco nomic geologist. Nevertheless, he had a basic interest in the origin of sediments, and his economic objectives were reached by sound studies of stratigraphy and petrography. In the field of stratigraphy, his study of the Carbondale quadrangle in southern Illinois (1925) was particularly rewarding, because the area crossed the southern bound ary of both the Illinois Coal Basin and the glaciated region as well as the northern margin of the Shawnee Hills (the Illinois Ozarks). He gave the first detailed description of the entire Chesterian Series in southwestern Illinois and differentiated the principal sandstone and shale formations of the basal Pennsylvanian strata. He made the first detailed map of a segment of the glacial border, showing two outlet channels for glacial drainage across the Shawnee Hills divide to the Ohio River drainage. In 1930, with Arle Sutton, he made the first detailed study of the Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments at the head of the Mississippi Embayment in extreme southern Illinois. Many of his later economic studies made significant stratigraphic contributions, especially to the St. Peter Sandstone, the Mississippian limestones, and the Lafayette gravel. J. E.’s interests in sedimentary petrology resulted in several papers on equipment and techniques and others on oolite, halloysite clay in Illinois, water soluble salts and clay minerals in limestone and dolomite, and heavy minerals in sands and gravels. J. E.’s writings in the field of industrial minerals covered almost the entire range of their production in Illinois. To make sure he had not overlooked some, he wrote a useful paper on “ Unexploited or little known industrial minerals in Illinois.” During his lengthy tenure, the value of the industrial minerals produced in Illinois increased from about $62,000,000 in 1923 to $215,000,000 when he retired in 1966. Although the growth was largely in response to expanding industrialization and the growth in population, it was possible because the essential mineral resources, particularly the building materials, were available and basic geologic studies of these resources had anticipated the future needs. J. E.’s earliest major report, with Frank Krey in 1925, was a large bulletin on the limestone resources of Illinois that described not only the geology and equipment of all quarries operating in the State but many abandoned quarries and outcrops suitable for MEMORIAL TO JOHN EVERTS LAMAR 3 quarry sites. The stratigraphy, physical properties, chemical composition, and potential uses of the geologic formations are described. Now 55 years old, this bulletin is still frequently referred to not only for its historical significance but as a source of basic data not available elsewhere. His report on the St. Peter Sandstone in 1928 is a classic—an exceptionally thorough economic study of the silica sand industry in the Ottawa, Illinois, region and the prop erties favoring its wide use as silica sand in the glass, molding sand, standard testing sand, abrasives, chemical, and many other industries. The basic study strongly sup ported the marine origin of the St. Peter Sandstone, which then was controversial. J. E.’s publication in 1938 describing the many uses of limestone and dolomite and the chemical and physical specifications of stone for most uses has been called the finest publication in its field. It has been widely used both nationally and internationally, and the 1961 revision is in a second printing. He was the senior author of bulletins reporting joint research by the geological and chemical groups of the Survey on rock-wool manufacture (1934) and later on materials for portland cement manufacture (1956). His last major publication (1967), a handbook on limestone and dolomite for Illinois quarry operators, is a compendium of geologic, physical, and chemical data based on his familiarity with the questions that quarry operators commonly ask of a geologist, and it is widely used throughout the country. J. E.’s shorter papers, many with joint authors, include several on extreme south ern Illinois, particularly on resources of limestone and dolomite, sandstones, clays and shales, fuller’s earth, and siliceous materials. His research on limestone and dolomite also resulted in papers on the resources of several parts of the State, and on high calcium limestone, agricultural limestone, and the shape of limestone and dolomite fragments produced by crushing. In the field of clays and shales, J. E. wrote about gumbotil for drilling mud, re fractory clays, Anna kaolin as a decolorizing agent, shales and clays as mortar mix, bonding clays for molding sand, oil shales, ceramic tests of clays and shales, and light weight brick from clay and peat or shredded corn cobs. J. E. also wrote papers on resources of sand and gravel, peat and muck, gypsum and anhydrite. He wrote the articles on “Stone” and “ Cement Rock” in the 1956 edi tion of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the article on “Sand” in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. J. E. instigated and gave general supervision to other projects in the field of in dustrial minerals. He supervised a study of the mineral resources along the Illinois Waterway during its construction in 1929-1930.