Memorial to Randall E. Brown 1917–2005 KEVIN R

Memorial to Randall E. Brown 1917–2005 KEVIN R. BROWN 4043 Zinnia Road, Victoria, British Columbia, V8Z 4W2 Canada DEREK J. BROWN 5747 Amaranth Place, Concord, California 94521, USA Looking back, it seems Randall (Randy) Brown was destined to be a geologist. The son of Percy and Zula Correll Brown, Randy was born on May 28, 1917, in Eugene, Oregon. His father was an avid hiker and climber, and Randy picked up the mountain “bug” at an early age, skiing, camping, and hiking in the Oregon Cascades and climbing the Three Sisters and Mount Lassen, which had recently erupted, as a young teenager. Following graduation from Eugene High School in 1934, Randy attended the University of Oregon for two years, then transferred to Stanford. He played clarinet in the Stanford band and completed his B.A. degree in geology at Stanford in 1938, followed by a year of graduate work. The blend of theory and practical knowledge offered at Stanford greatly appealed to Randy’s interests and infl uenced his career. Professor Aaron Waters, then at Stanford, became Randy’s mentor, collaborator, and lifelong friend. Randy also worked as a summer student technician in geology at Crater Lake in 1937 and published his fi rst research paper. He completed his M.S. at Yale in 1941, conducting research on the geology of the Mount Washington area of the Cascades. The research was supplemented by a successful ascent of the rather steep Mount Washington, which he later recounted was one of the scarier things he had ever done! Randy’s professional career began as a mining geologist with the M.A. Hanna Company at Glacier Peak in Washington. He spent the early and mid-1940s exploring for strategically impor tant minerals as an employee of the U.S. Geological Sur vey, U.S. Ar my Cor ps of Engineers, and Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. During this period, Randy worked in Arkansas, Texas, California, and Oregon. While working in Portland, he climbed Mount Hood and joined the Mazamas, a Portland-based mountaineering club. He met his future wife Helene while teaching international folk dancing at a Mazama-sponsored event. He and Helene were married in 1950 and remained so until Helene’s death in 1992. In 1947, Randy took a position as a research geologist at the Hanford Reservation near Richland in south-central Washington, fi rst with General Electric and later with Battelle Memorial Institute. His primary responsibility was to evaluate the suitability of the Columbia River basalts for containing radioactive waste generated as part of Cold War operations. At that time, the stratigraphy of the area and characteristics of the Columbia River basalts were not understood. He described and defi ned the stratigraphic relationships at the site and explained how this was important to controlling groundwater movement; these descriptions have been refi ned but are still referred to at Hanford. Randy also developed some of the fi rst groundwater Geological Society of America Memorials, v. 34, December 2005 61 62 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA maps showing how groundwater was being contaminated and conducted early studies of vadose contamination. He studied and described the fi rst deep borehole into basalt (drilled by Chevron in 1969). That borehole went 10,660 feet below ground surface and remained the deepest borehole until exploration activities of the 1980s. Employment at Hanford provided an excellent opportunity for Randy to study the geology of the Pasco Basin and allowed him to publish and present some of his fi ndings. However, the security associated with Hanford operations from the 1940s to 1980s meant that much of his research was documented in classifi ed reports and was not readily available to the broader scientifi c community, at least not until after his retirement. Where possible, he presented portions of the work at conferences. Despite the publishing constraints he faced, Randy’s work was recognized in the broader geologic and scientifi c communities. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1967 and president of the Northwest Scientifi c Association in 1969–1970, following two terms as a trustee. After budget and position cuts at Hanford in 1971, Randy taught geology for a year at Central Washington University before beginning a full-time consulting business. He consulted with a variety of clients, including some at Hanford, and gradually shifted his focus to regional groundwater issues. In this role, Randy became a most infl uential hydrogeologist in the Columbia Basin. The knowledge and experience he accumulated over the decades allowed him to solve many problems for people who needed groundwater. He worked closely with well drillers, farmers, and food processors, and his VW microbus was a familiar sight in the countryside. On a few occasions, Randy had to compete for business with “water witches,” a situation that was frustrating to an experienced geologist. He was concerned about overuse of irrigation water. His studies of the effects of over-irrigation in the Pasco Basin won him the Best Presentation Award at the 1971 annual meeting of the Society of Mining Engineers in Seattle. Randy was in demand as an expert witness in cases involving ground water use and contamination. He was the epitome of an expert witness—always prepared, not willing to testify unless he had complete command of a problem, and insistent upon clear, concise questions when under cross-examination. Randy practiced geology with enthusiasm at several levels. He fi rmly believed in continually learning and in teaching what he had learned. In addition to his research at Hanford, he was a panelist on the Hanford Science Forum, a General Electric radio and TV show, in the early 1950s. In 1955, he taught the fi rst geology class at Columbia Basin College. He was also an adjunct professor at Central Washington University and later taught geology classes at the Joint Center for Graduate Study in Richland and Columbia Basin College. The latter courses were attended by people with a wide range of backgrounds. He advised Boy Scouts in their pursuit of the geology merit badge and was often an invited after-dinner speaker. Occasionally he served as a judge at school science fairs and at rock and mineral shows. He rarely turned down the opportunity to lead fi eld trips and continued to do so into his 80s after moving into a retirement home. He was a supervisor of the Franklin County Conservation District for many years, including serving as vice-chair. He was a long-time member of the Geological Society of America, becoming a 50-year member in 2005; Randy also belonged to Sigma Xi, the Society of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, and the National Water Well Association. From a family perspective, geology was always nearby. Colleagues were welcome visitors at the family home in Pasco, and family vacations often included visits with other colleagues. The many family vacations in western North America were fi lled with trips to national parks and invariably included fossils, mountains, caves, mines, and old mining ghost towns. A family trip to Disneyland included visits to Death Valley and the La Brea tar pits, or perhaps it was really the other way around. Likewise, a family trip to Hawaiian beaches was really a great reason to visit Haleakala and Kiluaea. MEMORIAL TO RANDALL E. BROWN 63 As Randy “eased” into retirement, he took up river running, beginning with a fl oat through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, followed by fl oats down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho (the “River of No Return”) and the Rogue River in Oregon. Although largely done for the sheer fun of fl oating the rivers, his detailed notes of the trips make clear that he was thinking about the geology of those areas and developing material for future presentations. Randy had many interests outside of geology and was competent at those interests. Prior to raising his family, he helped organize the International Folk Dancers of Portland, was co-founder of Richland’s International Folk Dancers, and served as an original and active early member of the Intermountain Alpine Club, also in Richland. He was a lay reader in the Episcopal Church. He served as president of the local YMCA Board of Trustees during fund-raising drives to construct new facilities. He was a member of the board of the Mid-Columbia Symphony. He thoroughly enjoyed camping, hiking, climbing, and skiing. He was a good observer as a natural historian, knowledgeable not only about present-day native fl ora and fauna, but also competent at identifying fossilized plants and bones. He and Helene were enthusiastic travelers in Europe and Mexico and appreciative of the history, people, and cultures of other countries, as evidenced by his eclectic tastes in food and fondness for a beret and Norwegian sweater. Although his decreased mobility over the past few years limited his trips to the surrounding areas, he was always willing and eager to talk with others about the geology of the Pacifi c Northwest. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We gratefully acknowledge comments and insight from attorney George Wolcott and geologists Stephen Reidel, Peter Hooper, Ewart Baldwin, Bob Carson, and Hans-Ulrich Schmincke. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RANDALL E. BROWN 1937 Varved clays near the Devils Backbone: Nature Notes from Crater Lake, v. X, no. 3. 1942 Some manganese deposits in the southern Oregon coastal region: Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Short Paper No. 9, 6 p. 1943 (with Waters, A.C., Compton, R.R., Staples, L.W., Walker, G.W., and Williams, H.) Quicksilver deposits of the Horse Heaven mining district, Oregon: U.S.

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