Memorial to John Edward Armstrong 1912-1995 W

Memorial to John Edward Armstrong 1912-1995 W. H. M ATHEW S, 102 - 5555 Yew Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6M 3X9 J. J. CLAGUE, J. W. H. MONGER, J. A. RODDICK, H. W. TIPPER, Geological Survey o f Canada, 100 West Pender Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 1R8 E. C. HALSTEAD, 4432 Lions Avenue, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada John Edward (Jack) Armstrong passed away in Vancouver on February 10, 1995, after a brief illness. Jack was bom on February 18, 1912, and received his schooling in Cloverdale, 30 kilometers southeast of Vancouver. He attended the University of British Columbia, where he received the degrees of B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. (1934 and 1935), and the University of Toronto, where he received his Ph.D. in 1939. In 1937 he married Connie Crump, and they had one child, John, bom in 1943. Jack’s working career was entirely with the Geologi cal Survey of Canada (GSC) from 1936, when he was a summer student assistant, until his retirement in 1977. He completed his last report for the GSC in 1986. All but one of his studies were partly or wholly in British Columbia. His first professional work involved four-mile-to-the-inch mapping near the northern branch of the Canadian National Railway between Hazelton and Prince George in the period from 1938 to 1947. The discovery of mercury deposits near Fort St. James by a member of Jack’s field party led to the development of two productive mercury mines during wartime when demand for mercury was high and supply was limited. The map area directly east of the Fort St. James sheet, at the time referred to as the Carp Lake area, suffered from a dearth of outcrops. Jack quickly recognized the problem and concentrated on mapping the Quaternary sediments. For Jack, the late 1940s was a time of both intense study of the northern interior of B.C., and of teaching a proliferation of enthusiastic students, many of whom received their field training under Jack, who always made a point of discussing geology with students. He spent the 1950s and 1960s studying the surficial deposits of the lower Fraser River area before accepting the position of secretary-general of the 24th International Geological Congress in 1970. On completion of this assignment, he returned to the Vancouver office of the GSC, working on the local surficial geology and related matters until well after his retirement. The most significant of Jack’s early works is his Fort St. James memoir, released in 1949. The rocks here were studied in the detail permitted by the scale of mapping, four miles to the inch. His investigations took him across map boundaries where required; the geology was con sidered within the context of the entire Canadian Cordillera. This memoir became the model for subsequent GSC memoirs on the central and northern parts of British Columbia. Later, Jack recognized in the Cache Creek Group a distinctive unit of ribbon chert, mafic volcanic rocks, and ultramafic rocks with local blueschist in both the Fort St. James map area Geological Society of America Memorials, v. 26, November 1995 59 60 THK GEOLOGICAL SOCIHTY OF AMERICA and the southernmost part of the province. Two decades later, with the development of plate tec tonics, the Cache Creek Group was readily identified as a subduction complex extending the length of British Columbia. His work in the Coast Mountains immediately north of Vancouver was the first regional study of the granitic rocks of the region. Most of Jack’s studies in this later period, however, were concerned with Quaternary sedi ments, with the object of reconstructing glacial history. After an early sidetrack on what he termed Koalcha “till,” the history that Armstrong and associates developed has stood the test of time. Jack was one of the first North American scientists to recognize that shell-bearing, till-like sediments, which are common in the Vancouver area, are glaciomarine in origin and not tills as had been previously thought. As secretary-general, Jack organized the 24th International Geological Congress, held in Montreal in 1972. He worked full time on this for about two years before the congress and for one year afterwards. His organizational skills, excellent memory, and interest in people led him to do a masterful job, and he was responsible for many volumes of programs, abstracts, and proceedings. Jack also served as secretary-treasurer for two meetings of the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America, in May 1960 and again in May 1985, both at the University of British Columbia. Jack’s contribution extended well beyond the publication of technical reports and the orga nization of scientific meetings. He took a keen interest in geology students, particularly those hired for summer work under his supervision. A high proportion of these students went on to earn Ph.D. degrees, and many were then taken on as full-time employees by the GSC. Dick Campbell, Bill Mathews, John Reesor, Fred Roots, Jim Roddick, and John Wheeler are just a few who experienced Jack’s field training. Not only did students follow this pattern, but also cooks, like Doug McCartney and Bill Brown, and a horse wrangler, Ed Kohse. Whether Jack was the prime motivator, or whether he chose a dedicated group of assistants, or both, is uncer tain, but be that as it may, he assembled a high proportion of the students of the day who went on to professional geology. Jack Armstrong was first and foremost a conversationalist, and people were his prime interest. He could, and would, keep a conversation going even if it meant that he made the biggest contribution. He had tremendous recall of detail and past events and was a great source of information. Recollections What always struck me most about Jack was the great kick he got out of just about every thing, and it was infectious. He had an overriding interest in people, whether he knew them per sonally or just knew about them. This was especially true of his student field assistants, of which, through the years, he had many, including me. It was only at the end that one realized what a great influence he had on them. He followed their careers closely, and with the help of an exceptional memory, enjoyed recounting them in amazing detail to others; “others” could and did include anybody: colleagues, students, or whoever happened to be nearby. It was his nature to talk, and he did so, often at great length. I first met him in 1949, when I was assigned as a senior assistant to his field party, then working in the mountains north of Vancouver. Jack had been moved from Ottawa to the Vancou ver office in 1947 to begin mapping in the Vancouver area, and eventually to take over from W. E. Cockfield, who was nearing retirement age. Jack had been a participant in the famous conference on the Origin of Granite that was held in Ottawa in the middle of winter at the end of 1947. The meeting brought together a remark ably prominent group of geologists, chaired by Jim Gilluly. On the basis of his work in northern MEMORIAL TO JOHN E. ARMSTRONG 61 British Columbia, Jack contrasted the Omineca-Cassiar batholith which he thought “resulted from the intrusion of a magma from depth,” and the Wolverine complex, which he interpreted as the product of in situ granitization. He became more of a “granitizer” during his work in the Vancouver North map area which he began the following summer. His work in that area continued for four years, but the summer of 1951 caused him to divert his attention to the Fraser Lowlands. That summer remains the driest and hottest on record for the Vancouver area. Closure of the forests due to extreme fire hazard brought field work in the mountains to a halt for essentially the entire summer, and Jack began work on the surficial geology. He was naturally attracted to this work in the Fraser Lowland as he had been bom there, and took delight in talking to the farmers, with whom he had great rapport. From his earliest days, Jack took a keen interest in the sports scene, not so much as a par ticipant, although he loved to golf, but as an enthusiastic, knowledgeable fan and critic. He also enjoyed gardening. Jack was not, himself, really a humorist, but his enthusiastic recounting of the misadven tures of others brought on much laughter, and on occasion, some resentment. Yet, he probably had better relations with younger staff than anyone in the Survey. He will be long remembered and greatly missed. — Jim Roddick The signature initials “JEA” were bold, descriptive, positive, and final. Those initials were on a travel warrant that took me by train to Vanderhoof, B.C., arriving June 6,1945. There I met Jack and spent the summer as a. student assistant in the Aitken Lake map area. I was well acquainted by then with Jack’s outline Field Studies and a Typical Traverse, but spent the summer mastering the Classification o f Igneous Rocks. Later, Jack wisely directed me toward hydrogeology, a discipline I pursued for 38 years with the GSC. Throughout those years the initials “JEA” continued to cross my desk on friendly letters, on memos, on leave slips, but most importantly, as final approval of a manuscript. His distinctive signature represented a man, not unlike Tennyson’s Ulysses, who had a volition “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” — Carl Halstead SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF J.

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