Aretz et al_2011.pdf - ORBi - Université de Liège

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Kölner Forum Geol. Paläont., 19 (2011)
M. ARETZ, S. DELCULÉE, J. DENAYER & E. POTY (Eds.)
Abstracts, 11th Symposium on Fossil Cnidaria and Sponges, Liège, August 19-29, 2011
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Pat stressed breadth and utility in his research – from basic sedimentology and stratigraphy to
descriptive paleontology through palaeoecology, evolution, and biostratigraphy, always within the broader
context of regional geology. Hence, he taught me how the different scales of investigation must be
integrated irrespective of whether one focused on the systematics or the more regional stratigraphy. Along
the way, Pat taught me to make my first thin sections as well as measured sections (and his were always so
informative), to do field work and laboratory work, to collect fossil corals, but also their surrounding
lithology, all within a stratigraphic context. He taught me to write for publication, to whiten and
photograph samples, to do my own darkroom work and make plates the good old fashioned way with
photographs and scissors. He was a stickler for finding just the right pair of surgical scissors that would cut
the sharpest images without deforming the edges of the photographs. As his assistant in the Oklahoma
Museum of Natural History, Pat taught me how to organise a collection, do the necessary book keeping
and cross cataloguing required of a curator, and gave me a real sense for the value of a good museum
collection and a good library. He taught me the importance of collaboration with international colleagues
and helped me start my reprint collection. Even as an undergraduate student, he gave me an interesting
collection to work on for my Senior Honours Thesis, the Imo coral fauna from Arkansas, and then pushed
me to have a paper for presentation at the 4th IASFCP Symposium in Washington DC in 1983. As his
graduate student, Pat found ways to involve me in teaching (I got to teach six weeks of evolution theory to
his graduate biostratigraphy class when he went on an overseas trip). Looking back now, I don’t know how
he fit so much in, but it is clear that he was preparing me for the academic career I now so greatly enjoy,
and I think what made it all work was that he simply involved me in everything. He treated me like a
colleague from early on, and I learned more than I ever really appreciated. And mentoring me could not
have been easy. My writing was so bad as a student, that after I submitted my MSc thesis, I gave him a box
of red pens to make up for some of the ones he used up commenting on my many drafts. He was as patient
with my youthful ignorance and mood shifts as he was of my writing and always with good humor and the
bearing of a real gentleman. Pat finally introduced me to John Jell and helped me get a scholarship to do
my PhD in Brisbane in Australia, a place I now call home.
Pat’s mentoring also went far beyond science. He was a master traveller. When I was a PhD student in
Brisbane, he planned a trip for us to visit Prof. Makato KATO in Sapporo in 1987 before the Carboniferous
Congress in Beijing. We met up first in Kyoto. Pat had chosen a relatively inexpensive Japanese inn and I
found by looking at photos on their wall that it was visited by important U.S. politicians (like Ted
Kennedy) and other rich and famous. Pat always researched out the best places to stay. On the other hand,
I was a bit nervous to be presented with a good road map of China while in the Friendship Hotel, Beijing,
for the Carboniferous Congress when I realised that it was stamped ‘CIA’ all over it. Pat had ordered it
from Washington D.C as the best available map of China for tracking our position on the conference field
trips. Pat always found ways to broaden my horizons. I have never again attended an opera with anyone
else! Pat was a great friend and colleague and one I could always count on for scientific discussion or an
interesting conversation about the arts. I miss him.
COCKE, J.M. & BOWSHER, A.L. (1968): New tabulate genus Sutherlandia (Coelenterata, Anthozoa) from Pennsylvanian of
Oklahoma and Kansas. – University of Kansas, Paleontological Contributions, 33: 1-8.
SUTHERLAND, P.K. (1965): Rugose corals of the Henryhouse Formation (Silurian) in Oklahoma. – Oklahoma Geological
Survey, Bulletin, 109: 1-92.
SUTHERLAND, P.K. (1982) (Ed.): Lower and Middle Pennsylvanian stratigraphy in south-central Oklahoma. - Oklahoma
Geological Survey, Guidebook, 20, 44p.
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Oklahoma and Arkansas. – Geological Society America Bulletin, 100: 1787-1802.
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and northwestern Arkansas. - Oklahoma Geological Survey, Guidebook, 18, 183p.
SUTHERLAND, P.K. & MANGER W.L. (1979) (Eds.): Mississippian–Pennsylvanian shelf-to-basin transition, Ozark and
Ouachita regions, Oklahoma and Arkansas. - Oklahoma Geological Survey, Guidebook, 19, 81p.
WEYER, D (1972): Rugosa (Anthozoa) mit biformem Tabularium. – Jahrbuch für Geologie, 4 (1968): 439-463.
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