Memorial to G. Gordon Suffel 1904-1982 R
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Memorial to G. Gordon Suffel 1904-1982 R. W. HUTCHINSON Department of Geology, University of Western Ontario, London N6A 5B7, Canada G. Gordon Suffel, a respected colleague and esteemed friend to many geologists throughout the world, died suddenly at his home in London. Ontario, on Decem ber 6, 1982. He was born in Inkerman, near Ottawa, Ontario, on July 6. 1904. His father and mother were George Edward and Jenny Rose (Wert) Suffel. His life long interest in and love of the natural sciences was the legacy of his boyhood years on the family’s farm where he was born and where his remains now rest. Gordon Suffel studied geology from 1921 until 1927 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in geology in 1925 and 1927. His earliest experience as a mineralogist and teacher was gained as an assistant to E. L. Bruce, then Professor of Mineralogy at Queen’s. Suffel left Queen’s for Stanford University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1929. During his years as a student, Suffel mapped extensively for the Ontario Department of Mines, especially in the then remote Archean greenstone belts of northwestern Ontario, where the Red Lake and Uchi Lake gold and base metal producing districts were subsequently discovered. He counted among his close friends and co-workers such early notable contributors to Precambrian geology as T. L. Tanton. J. E. Hawley, and M. E. Wilson. His encyclopedic knowledge about all things Precambrian began during this early field experience,and this remained always one of his keenest interests. In 1926 Gordon Suffel married Florence A. McKibbon of Cherry Valley in south eastern Ontario. His son Peter and daughter Linda, both of whom survive him, were born in 1928 and 1929, but his wife Florence passed away in London, Ontario, in 1949. after a lengthy illness. On completion of his Ph.D. in 1929. Suffel joined Noranda Mines Limited as geologist at the famous Horne and Waite-Amulet mines at Noranda. Quebec. He published early papers on the geology of these Archean massive base and precious metal sulphide deposits, and a meticulous underground mapping of the ores carried out by him and other Noranda geologists, including Peter Price and “Banky” Bancroft, remain an invaluable record and asset for the many students of ores of this type, in this perhaps most famous of all such districts. His second major lifetime geological interest in the geology of ore deposits stemmed from the years in Noranda, where he returned repeatedly after leaving the company, most recently as a consultant in 1982. Gordon Suffel left Noranda to begin teaching mineralogy, Precambrian and economic geology at the University of Western Ontario in London in 1946, and here he passed the remainder of his professional career. In London, he met and married Priscilla Ngai, a medical doctor from a prominent Chinese medical family. His wife Priscilla survives him in London. Ontario. At Western his devotion to his students, to teaching, and to research enriched the Department of Geology long after his retirement in 1971. He was not only a respected 2 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA colleague to his many associates in the geological profession, but a warm and trusted advisor to a generation of students at all levels. From him they could count not only on sound advice and patient instruction—administered with a quiet but keen sense of humour—but also on an unfailing willingness to share his knowledge, experience, and extensive library. Gordon and Priscilla Suffel traveled widely throughout the world, attending inter national meetings in Mexico City, Copenhagen, New Delhi, Prague, and Tokyo. He spent the summer of 1968 in Turkey and visited Australia and South Africa. He twice traveled to China in 1976 and 1978, when he and Priscilla visited the many members of her family residing there. Suffel was not a prolific writer of geological papers, but his contributions were based on extensive knowledge and marked by sound observation and careful reasoning. He was awarded the Barlow Memorial Gold Medal by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy for a paper on Archean metallogeny judged the best geological paper published by the Institute in 1970. Gordon Suffel was a man of many interests. He was an active member of the World Federalists of Canada and of the Canadian Peace Research Institute. He was an avid collector and a meticulous curator. The university benefited immensely and enduringly from this interest, for he established, organized, maintained, and continually sought to expand two important collections in the geology department, one mineralogical and the other of ores and their host rocks from mining districts throughout the world. These are outstanding, perhaps unique amongst those to be found in the world’s universities, together containing over 35,000 fully catalogued specimens. They are another of his invaluable legacies to students, to the university, and to his profession. His personal collections of coins and medals were a continuing source of interest to him. He was also an excellent horticulturalist, and a visit to his home invariably included a stroll through his and Priscilla’s small greenhouse, with views, even in mid-winter, of orchids and exotic flowering plants. Although retired officially from the university in 1972, Suffel remained interested and active as Emeritus Professor in the Geology Department until three days before his death when he chaired an examination committee for a thesis defence by a graduate student in geology. This thesis considered an area of northwestern Ontario where he had mapped nearly sixty years before—a point that did not escape his keen attention. Gordon Suffel’s insight, wisdom, patience, and quiet humour are sorely missed by all who knew him, and his death leaves a void which only time can fill. He was the sort of man of whom Francis Bacon spoke in defining the scientific mind as one “endowed by nature with the desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to set in order and neither affecting what is new nor admiring what is old and hating every kind of imposture.” MEMORIAL TO G. GORDON SUFFEL 3 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF G. G. SUFFEL 1929 The dolomites of western Oklahoma: Oklahoma Geological Survey Bulletin, no. 49. 1930 Geology of the Big Stone Bay area, Lake of the Woods, District of Kenora: Annual Report Ontario Department of Mines. 1935 Relations of later gabbro to sulphides at the Horne Mine, Noranda, Quebec: Economic Geology, v. 30, no. 8. 1948 Waite-Amulet Mine: Amulet section, in Structural geology of Canadian ore deposits. Jubilee Volume: Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. 1968 (with Mookherjee, A.) Massive sulphide—late diabase relationships, Horne Mine: Genetic and chronological implications: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 5, no. 3, part I. 1971 (with Hutchinson, R. W., and Ridler, R. H.) Métallogénie relationships in the Abitibi Belt, Canada: A model for Archean metallogeny: Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Bulletin, v. 64, no. 708. ____ (with Hutchinson, R. W., and Ridler, R. H.) Metamorphism of massive sulphides, Manitouwadge, Ontario, Canada. IAGOD Volume: Proceedings of IMA-IAGOD Meetings 70, Society of Mining Geologists of Japan Special Issue No. 3. Printed in U.S.A. 10/83.