Harry Hess Centennial WebEdition Supplement, July, 2006 From the Spring 2006 issue of The Smilodon Harry Hess in the early 1960’s. Introduction to this WebEdition Supplement to the Spring 2006 issue of The Smilodon The authors of the original letters were asked to provide about 250-300 words. However, very few could keep to that amount. So it was necessary with limited publication space to edit the letters to fit the space available. A word count of the published, but edited, letters that appeared in The Smilodon is 6,092, whereas the word count of the complete letters (not including the late arrivals) amounts to 13,427. So only about 45% made the printed edition. Since many held to the smaller word limit, the big cuts were made in only a few very long letters. However, it was felt that so many interesting comments were made that the entire original texts as submitted should be made available. So here they are! We have made few changes, principally putting in the class numeral, and other information for identification purposes. In addition five letters arrived too late to meet the deadline. Their comments are included at the end. In addition, more photos were submitted than we could use, so we have included here all of those submitted, including a repeat of the original ones in the Spring 2006 Smilodon. W. E. Bonini, Editor Laurie Wanat, Production Editor The Smilodon, July 1, 2006 The Smilodon, a Web Supplement 1 July 1, 2006 Remembering Harry Hess One hundred years ago, on May 27, 1906, Harry Hammond Hess *32, faculty 1934-69, was born in New York City. Although his life was shortened by a heart attack at the age of 63 in 1969, he had a profound influence on geologic thought in the 20th Century. Arthur F. Buddington *16, faculty1917-59, wrote an obituary in which he recounted the five lives of Hess’ remarkable life, “(1) as a family man, (2) a member of the family of Princeton University, (3) a mineralogist, geologist, geological geophysicist and oceanographer, (4) an officer in the U. S. Naval Reserve and a statesman- scientist, and (5) the organizer, fund-raiser, and administrator of the Princeton Caribbean Geological Research Project.” Hess’ intellectual accomplishments are well recorded in the literature, so here we look at Hess as a person and his influence on a generation of students - especially, on a group of students graduat- ing Princeton in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Graduate students of that era gathered in Calgary, Alberta, last September to celebrate the beauty and geology of the Canadian Rockies at the Third Princ- eton GeoGrads Reunion. One evening at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge in Banff was set aside to Hess the typist, 1932, at Princeton. remember Harry Hess. Here are some of the thoughts and memories of him. Acknowledgements: Roger Macqueen *65 was most helpful in putting everything together, including supplying some photos; Rosemary Barker recorded and transcribed some presentations; Ted Konigsmark *58, Peter Mattson *57, and Dave MacKenzie *54 sent photographs; and Don Wise *57 took over 200 photos during the Reunion, many of which are in the printed edition. We owe special thanks to Harry’s son, George B. Hess, Professor of Physics, University of Virginia, for family photos that appear in this issue. For space reasons, many essays were shortened, but the complete series of contributions will be appear on the Departmental website in early July. http://geoweb.princeton.edu/. Please note that the contents of this document may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without permission. For more information on reprinting, please contact us at [email protected]. Harry Hess Talk By Dick Holland ’47, Faculty 1950-1972 myself to join the BC Geological Survey (then the BC Dept. of In the spring of 1950 I was asked to come to Princeton to be Mines, Mineralogical Branch), Harry said that I should try to start interviewed for a job in the Geology Department. I had graduated mapping the Queen Charlotte Islands. His thought was that its from Princeton in Chemistry, and was then in my third year as a west coast dropped sharply from alpine elevations to deep oceanic graduate student at Columbia. Harry Hess, the incoming Chair- depths and that there must be a reason. At the time the Queen man in Geology, asked me what 1 planned to do in my research. Charlotte Fault was not known and the islands were virtually terra I outlined some of my ideas. Harry was pleased, and it became nova. As chance had it, six years later the BC Government was obvious that he was going to offer me a job. I demurred somewhat: trying to encourage iron mining in the Province but at the same “You know, I’m not quite 23 yet, and I don’t think I’m ready to time was cutting funds for geological surveys. I, with the help of teach anybody anything, especially not at Princeton”. Harry’s my boss Stuart Holland (Princeton *33), proposed that we start response was perfect: “You know, Dick; if we didn’t think that a mapping project to outline favourable areas for magnetite skarn your lectures ten years from now would be better than the ones deposit that industry could then fly. The government could hardly you are apt to give in the fall, I wouldn’t offer you the job.” Of refuse. course, my reaction was: “My God, they’re going to keep me for Consequently, I did map the whole of the Charlottes. The very ten years!” As it turned out, I stayed for twenty-two. January 5, large QC earthquake on the fault was the year before I started 2006 <[email protected]> and I showed the small number of old soundings along the west coast were contoured wrongly and, when corrected, displayed a Atholl Sutherland Brown *54 on Harry Hess’ thinking trench tracing the fault. Harry always thought globally and guided 16 Jan 2006. A Note on Harry Hess and his thoughts leading students to critical projects. Incidentally, we also found magnetite toward conceptualizing the Mohole, deep drilling and the theory deposits.” <[email protected]> of Plate Tectonics. The facts of the following note may be well left to others in more elaborate form. Dave MacKenzie *54 In 1951 Harry gave a course supposedly for senior undergradu- In the early 1950s, the attention of many petrologists was on the ates that he called Advanced General Geology. It was attended by granitization controversy. But Hess saw that the keys to understand- all the resident graduate students because not only was he thinking ing earth’s features lay at the other end of the petrologic spectrum, out loud but he welcomed discussion. With guys like Gene Shoe- the ultramafic rocks, and in island arcs and ocean basins. Yet his maker present there was no shortage of this. During these sessions breakthrough hypothesis of sea-floor spreading in the early 1960s he started describing the dearth of sediments and sedimentary was preceded by concepts that later turned out to be discredited rocks in the deep ocean basins and gave figures for the amount that byways. One invoked a primary peridotite magma as the source of was missing. He felt there had to be a method of recycling them. alpine-type peridotites. Even in the face of contrary experimental I believe this soon led him towards concepts of possible solutions data, he was reluctant to abandon the idea. Another concept he and methods of testing. championed was the tectogene, a down-buckling of the earth’s crust 17 Jan 2006. A further brief note on Harry Hess and his global to explain the strong negative gravity anomalies associated with thinking that might be of interest. “In 1952, when I committed many island arcs. Here is Jacques Béland’s *53 take on the tecto- The Smilodon, a Web Supplement 2 July 1, 2006 Memories of Harry Hess by Reg Shagam *56, December 20, 2005 To understand this let me remind you of a problem in the Coast Ranges of Venezuela which puzzled about 6 graduate members of Harry’s Caribbean crew. An E-W belt of quartzo-feldspathic metamorphics (Caracas Group) along the coast is in fault contact with an E-W belt of basic volcanics (Villa de Cura Group) to the south. The paucity of fossils and lack of radiometric age data stymied all efforts to establish the age relationships of the two belts. If the volcanic belt was the younger how come one never found the volcanics intrusive into the quartzo-feldspathic belt? If the reverse how come one never found pebbles of the volcanics in the Caracas Group, moreover what happened to the thick pile of sediment which presumably once overlay the volcanics in the latter situation? Harry solved the problem by proposing obduction of marine volcanics onto the continental margin. Keep in mind this was mid- to late-fifties...BPT (Before Plate Tectonics !). Harry’s Tectogene, or tecto-Jean drawing by Jacques Béland *53. idea when told now draws yawns; at the time it was mind-boggling science. gene or tecto-Jean. I am sending the figure and Jacques’ approval Years later I asked him: “Harry, what gave you the idea for the by mail. (see figure). So even with his extraordinary intuition, the obduction of the Villa de Cura?” “You did” I looked at him open- path to sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics led to some dead- mouthed; “Huh?” “Yes. You mapped that fossiliferous limestone ends. Note: Jacques has given me written approval to include his near the top of the sediments and showed its constant spatial re- figure.