Memorial to BP Radhakrishna
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Memorial to B.P. Radhakrishna (1918–2012) RASOUL SORKHABI University of Utah, Energy and Geoscience Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah 84108, USA Bangalore Puttaiya Radhakrishna, known affection- ately to his friends and colleagues as BPR, an eminent Indian geologist and an honorary fellow of the Geological Society of America, died in his hometown of Bangalore, southern India, on 26 January 2012 at age 94. BPR was born on 30 April 1918 in Bangalore in Karnataka State. He was the third of the six sons of Shreemati (Mrs.) Venkamma and Shri (Mr.) Bangalore Puttaiah, a noted Indian journalist and superintendent of Mysore State’s book printing. BPR grew up in Bangalore and studied at Fort High School, close to his residence district of Chamarajpet. He obtained his bachelor of science (honors) degree from Central College in 1937 with a gold medal for first in his class. His interest in geology was triggered at an early age by reading geology books, especially Archibald Geikie’s Founders of Geology, in his father’s library (his father was a geology graduate). Indeed, BPR was influenced by his father’s intellectual interests and later wrote his biography Nanna Thande (“My Father,” 1949) in his mother tongue of Kannada. Soon after his graduation, BPR joined the Mysore Geological Department (now called the Department of Mines and Geology of Karnataka State), which was established in 1894. The huge library and renowned geologists of the Mysore Geological Department along with the rich mineral resources and geologically fascinating landscape of Karnataka inspired BPR to excel in understanding the Precambrian geology and natural resources of his home state. In 1954, he was awarded a Ph.D. from Mysore University for his work on the genesis of the Archaean Closepet Granite in southern India. BPR served as the director of Karnataka’s Department of Mines and Geology from 1965 till 1974. He also held top managerial or advisory positions in several mining enterprises in Karnataka, including Chitradurga Copper Company (which he founded in 1966), Karnataka Copper Consortium, Kolar Gold Fields (which was closed in 2001 due to rising costs and low-grade deposits), and Hutti Gold Mines (currently the only gold producing mine in India). In 1979, after forty-two years of working for mineral surveys, BPR retired from government service. BPR seldom traveled outside of India. He attended a conference at the University of Leicester, UK, in 1975, and another conference held at North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, USA, in 1977. BPR is best known for his association with the Geological Society of India (GSI) in Bangalore, of which he was a founding member in 1958. He served as GSI’s secretary from 1958–1992, as editor of the Journal of the Geological Society of India from 1974–1992, and as the society’s president from 1992–2006. During his tenure as editor and president, GSI expanded its membership; established an international reputation for its monthly journal; organized its annual meetings in a professional and timely manner; and launched a series of publications including Memoirs, geology textbooks for various Indian states, the Economic Geology series, Geological Society of America Memorials, v. 41, December 2012 45 46 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA and Excursion Guidebooks. BPR was a voracious reader, a scholarly thinker, a prolific writer, and a skillful editor. He edited and wrote a number of GSI publications. Metallogeny, Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks, and the tectonic and geomorphic evolution of southern India, especially of Karnataka, were at the heart of BPR’s research work. He published several seminal papers on these subjects. His pioneering work on the Closepet Granite, which covers a vast part of the Mysore area, showed that it was petrologically heterogeneous and probably formed due to continental collision in Archean times. Using geomorphic indicators of mountains and rivers on the Indian coastal margins, BPR also demonstrated that the Indian Peninsula, often viewed as a tectonically dead Precambrian shield, had a vibrant geologic history during Mesozoic–Cenozoic times. He was especially attracted to the Western Ghats (also called Sahyadri), a 1600-km-long range on the western margin of India reaching heights of 2000 m. This mountain belt formed as a major rift shoulder uplift during the Deccan Trap volcanism at the late Cretaceous–Paleocene transition. BPR’s book Geology of Karnataka (1994, 1997) is a benchmark publication in its field, and this alone is no small achievement in view of the fact that Karnataka, sitting on the Dharwar Craton of southern India, contains some of the oldest geologic record of Earth’s continents. For years, BPR wrote influential editorials in GSI’s monthly journal in which he expounded upon issues such as the environment, groundwater, mineral resources, science education, and priorities in geologic research. He also wrote biographies of many noted Indian and foreign geologists. Most of these editorials have been collected in two GSI Memoirs: Random Harvest: An Anthology of Editorials (2003) and Random Harvest: Biographical Sketches (2005). BPR was also a great promoter of science among the public. He wrote popular science books in Kannada, including biographies of C.V. Raman, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Marie Curie, all of which were well received. He was given the Sahitya Academy Award for best biography in 1989, 1997, and in 2002. For his dedicated and remarkable service to geology, BPR received many awards and honors, including fellow of the Indian Academy of Science (1956), National Mineral Award of the Government of India (1971), fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (1972), Rajyothsava Award of Karnataka State (1974), fellow of the Geological Society of London (1986), fellow of the Geological Society of America (1988), The Pramatha Nath Bose Medal of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (1990), Honorary D.Sc. from the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad (1992), D.N. Wadia Gold Medal for Earth Science by the Indian National Science Academy (1993), Padma Shree Award by the President of India (1993), Visveywaraya Award for Senior Scientists by the Karnataka State Government (1996), honorary fellow of the Indian Geophysical Union (1996), Millennium Award of the Geochemical Society of India (2000), National Mineral Award for Excellence (2000), and Jawaharlal Nehru Ceremony Award at the 94th Indian Science Congress (2007). A mineral by the composition of lead tellurium chloride discovered in the Kolar gold fields of Karnataka by Russian scientists in 1985 was named Radhakrishnaite. In 1995, the GSI established an annual B.P. Radhakrishna Award for the best paper published in the society’s journal. BPR married Subhadamma in 1944; she died in 1971 at an untimely age and while BPR was on a work-related trip. They raised four daughters and two sons. BPR’s life saddled both British and independent India and he used the best of both periods. Until his last days, he was engaged in reading, researching, thinking, and writing on matters of geoscience. His contributions to India’s geological science and his leadership as a dedicated architect of the Geological Society of India will remain an inspiring legacy. BPR was indeed the doyen of Indian geology in the country’s post-independence history. MEMORIAL TO B.P. RADHAKRISHNA 47 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF B.P. RADHAKRISHNA 1952 The Mysore Plateau: Its structural and physiographical evolution: Mysore Geologists Association Bulletin, no. 3, p. 1–53. 1954 On the nature of certain cordierite-bearing granulites bordering the Closepet granites of Mysore: Mysore Geological Department Bulletin, v. 21, p. 1–25. 1956 The Closepet Granite of Mysore State: Bangalore, Mysore Geological Association, Special Publication 3, 110 p. 1964 Evolution of the Sharavati drainage, Mysore State, South India: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 5, p. 72–79. 1965 Geomorphological evolution of the Mysore plateau, in Misra, R.P., ed., Contributions to Indian Geography, v. 2: Geomorphology: New Delhi, Heritage Publishers, p. 31–40. 1966 Geomorphological evolution of the Mysore plateau: Bulletin of the Indian Geophysical Union, v. 2, p. 95–106. 1967 Copper in Mysore State: Bangalore, Mysore Department of Mines and Geology, 55 p. 1967 Reconsideration of some problems in the Archaean complex of Mysore: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 8, p. 102–109. 1967 The Western Ghats of the Indian Peninsula: Proceedings of the Seminar on Geomorphological Studies in India, 1965: Sagar, Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Sagar, p. 4–14. 1968 Geomorphological approach to the charnokite problem: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 9, p. 67–74. 1973 (with Pandit, S.A., and Prabhakar, K.T.) Copper mineralization in the ultrabasic complex of Nuggihalli, Hassan District, Mysore State: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 14, p. 302–312. 1974 (with Sreenivasaiah, C.) Bedded barytes from the Precambrian of Karnataka: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 15, p. 314–315. 1976 Mineralization episodes in the Dharwar craton of peninsular India: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 17, p. 79–88. 1976 The two greenstone groups in the Dharwar craton: Indian Mineralogist, v. 16, p. 12–15. 1977 (with Vasudev, V.N.) The early Precambrian of the southern Indian shield: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 18, p. 525–541. 1977 (with Venkatasubramianian, V.S., and Jayaram, S.) Model galena ages from Karnataka and surrounding areas: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v. 18, p. 9–52. 1983 Archaean granite-greenstone terrain of South Indian shield, in Naqvi, S.M., and Rogers, J.J.W., eds., Precambrian of South India: Bangalore, Geological Society of India Memoir 4, p. 1–46. 1984 Crustal evolution and metallogeny—Evidence from the Indian Shield: A review: Journal of the Geological Society of India, v.