Memorial to William Kelso Gealey 1918-1993 PETER VERRALL 185 Graystone Terrace, Apartment 1, San Francisco, California 94114
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Memorial to William Kelso Gealey 1918-1993 PETER VERRALL 185 Graystone Terrace, Apartment 1, San Francisco, California 94114 Sitting in the lobby of a Venezuelan hotel recently, I looked up and thought I saw Bill Gealey coming through the door. This prospect of meeting him again filled me with enormous pleasure, until I remembered, sadly, that he had died some time before. The pleasure that I had felt, though, was typical of the effect that Bill, always intelligent and affable, had upon those fortunate enough to know him. Bill was bom on September 8, 1918, two months before the end of World War I, in New Castle, Pennsylva nia. As a very young man, however, he followed Horace Greeley’s advice and went West to Stockton, California. From the age of five to sixteen, he proceeded through grade school and high school and, in 1929, briefly became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Stockton. He once remarked that he was broke through most of this period, a familiar experience to those who grew up during those Depression years. He saved enough money from his paper route, however, to be able to enter the University of California at Berkeley in 1935, immediately after high school. After four years there, supported by scholar ships and various jobs, he graduated at the age of nineteen with an A.B. in paleontology and geology. Thus armed, he began his professional career as a geology teaching assistant at Anti och College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. This experience was invaluable because it instilled in him the ability to communicate complex ideas that was so characteristic of his later career. After a year at Antioch, Bill decided that he was not educated enough, so he returned to his old alma mater, UC Berkeley, where for a year he worked on an M.A., again in paleontology and geology. In 1941 he joined a UC expedition to Central America for four months, and worked so diligently that he was subsequently able to produce a publication on the reconnais sance geology of El Salvador. Bill’s life became happier during this period. In 1941 he also began a most felicitous married life with Ursula Gealey, whom he had met at Antioch College during her freshman year. This enduring union continued until his death 52 years later. Ursula chose with discernment: Bill was not only intelligent, but also quite handsome, as evident from a photograph of him at about that time. In July 1942 Bill decided to help win the war and turned himself into a ship fitter at the famous Kaiser Company Shipyard #3 in Richmond, California, where Liberty ships were being built about as fast as U-boats were sinking them in the North Atlantic. After seven months with Kaiser, he left for another job in geology, this time as a micropaleontologist with Standard Oil Company of California in Los Angeles. A year-and-a-half later, in November 1944, he was transferred to Maracaibo, Venezuela, as a geologist with Richmond Exploration Company, a subsidiary of Standard of California, where he worked until the middle of 1947. In the summer of 1947 Bill came to the conclusion that he was still not educated enough and, obtaining a leave of absence from Standard Oil of California, entered the graduate school at Cornell University, on a Shell fellowship, to study structural geology. This resulted in a Ph.D. in Geological Society of America Memorials, v. 27, December 1996 101 102 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 1949, the thesis subject of which was the geology of the Healdsburg, California, quadrangle, published in 1951 by the State of California. From Cornell, Bill returned to Standard of California as a geologist in Taft, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, which for so long had been his home. There, he and Ursula began to raise their two boys: David John, bom in Heber City, Utah, in June 1949 while his parents were traveling from New York to California, and Peter Loren, bom in Taft in December 1951. Taft, unlike fertile Stockton, was a remote hamlet in the desert of the west side of the valley, sur rounded by oil derricks and pump jacks. A posting there was considered by many to be a kind of Standard of California purgatory. Bill, however, proved himself in his two-and-a-half years there, earning promotion to Regional Geologist in Bakersfield. A year later his career began to take off with a promotion to District Geological Supervisor, followed three years later by a transfer from Bakersfield to San Francisco and a further promotion to Division Exploration Rep resentative for California Exploration Company, a subsidiary of Standard of California involved in overseas exploration, where Bill’s experience proved invaluable. It was at this time, in November 1957, that Bill and his family moved to the pleasant town of Mill Valley in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. This was his home for the rest of his life. Another promotion, to Exploration Consultant, Eastern Hemisphere, occurred in March 1963, requiring Bill to become familiar with the geology of the half of the world with which he was not already acquainted. Bill took this career opportunity in his stride until he was deserted by Califor nia Exploration Company, which disintegrated in 1968. Rising from the ashes of California Explo ration Company, however, was a new subsidiary of Standard Oil of California, Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc., which acquired Bill and immediately promoted him to Exploration Manager for Europe. Six months later Africa and the Middle East were added to his bailiwick, and for two years he applied his considerable technical and executive abilities to that vast area. Bill had become convinced of the validity of plate tectonics theory from its inception in the early 1960s, long before it became generally accepted within the oil industry. This conviction, together with his global experience of geology and his preference for technological work, resulted in his appointment, in April 1971, as Geological Consultant, Plate Tectonics and Basin Evaluation. He found this post so congenial, and his abilities so well used, that he held it until his retirement in early 1985. In this capacity he directed a group of six highly competent senior geologists, providing technical assistance and counsel on plate tectonics and basin evaluation to Chevron companies on a worldwide basis, in addition to conducting worldwide mapping pro jects embodying plate tectonics theory. Bill and the group produced a large amount of original work on the subject, some of which was published, including Bill’s studies of the Oman ophio- lites and of the detailed plate tectonics of southern South America, the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. During his 40 years with Chevron, Bill’s influence extended considerably beyond the limits of the corporation. In 1962, for example, he was a member of the Business Council for Interna tional Understanding, Washington, D.C. From 1982 to 1985 he was a member of the Committee on Global and International Geology, under the aegis of the National Research Council, which was headed at the time by Frank Press. His advice on these councils was much valued. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Sigma Gamma Epsilon, Phi Kappa Phi, and the Ameri can Geophysical Union, and was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. In addition he was active in his community in Mill Valley. When he retired, Bill was not idle. He taught at Fromm Institute, University of San Fran cisco, in the Adult Education Program, for two years. He was frequently asked to consult with various subsidiaries of Chevron on matters related to plate tectonics. He and Ursula also spent many happy days backpacking in such scenically magnificent areas as the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and the Sierra Nevada of California. MEMORIAL TO WILLIAM KELSO GEALEY 103 During one of the last of his consulting visits he expounded most lucidly on plate tectonics at a Chevron structural geology seminar. He was late arriving at the lecture room to begin his talk, so when he did appear, some wit in the audience, followed by several others, began to sing a paraphrase of a once popular ballad: “Won’t you come home, Bill Gealey.” All of us, including Bill, had a good laugh. Unhappily for us, Bill died of prostate cancer on June 20, 1993. We are the less for his going, and we miss him, his cheerful smile, and the good advice he gave us. Bill is survived by his wife, Ursula Gealey, of Mill Valley, California, and by their two sons, David John Gealey and Peter Loren Gealey, both of Fort Bragg, California, and by one grandchild. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF W. K. GEALEY 1943 (with Stirton, R. A.) Fossil vertebrates from El Salvador: Journal of Paleontology, v. 17, p. 309. 1949 (with Stirton, R. A.) Reconnaissance geology and vertebrate paleontology of El Salvador, Central America: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 60, p. 1731-1753. 1951 Geology of the Healdsburg Quadrangle, California: California Division of Mines and Geology Bulletin, v. 161, p. 1-50. 1977 Ophiolite obduction and geological evolution of the Oman Mountains and adjacent areas: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 88, p. 1183-1191. 1981 Plate tectonic evolution of southern South America-Scotia Sea-Antarctica area: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 65, p. 929-930. 1982 Margin types; their characteristics and potential: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 66, p. 571. 1985 (with Parker, E. S.) Plate tectonic evolution of the Western Pacific-Indian Ocean region: Energy (Oxford), v.