| Description | General correspondence of Dan McKenzie, Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, England, January-December 1992. The contents principally comprise various invitations and arrangements for McKenzie to attend symposia, serve on committees, give talks or write articles, requests for preprints or computer programs, or permission to republish his papers, correspondence with publishers, or with fellow academics/scientists seeking McKenzie's opinion on their works, but also:
Letters from Richard Hey, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, concerning an AGU symposium on plate tectonics he is organizing, October 1991, notably a letter inviting McKenzie to participate as he is lacking British representation, but hopes McKenzie won't mind that the symposium will be an 25th anniversary celebration, 6 January 1992, with reply from McKenzie agreeing to come but without much enthusiasm as he gets depressed meeting 'all these old men who have stopped doing science', was at a previous meeting which also claimed to mark the 25th anniversary and thinks that he will be stared at as he was then like a 'zoo animal', 13 January 1992*;
Kenneth Hsu, Geologisches Institut, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, complains about Claude Allegre's interference with elections to the US National Academy, wants to nominate Xavier Le Pichon for membership, reminds McKenzie that he was offered a post at ETH 20 years prior but turned it down as he felt he was too young, thinks he should now reconsider to replace John Ramsay as the pay is very good, 10 February 1992, with draft and copy reply from McKenzie agreeing with Hsu's points, although on only a fifth of the salary he doesn't spend that much so is very happy where he is, 14 February 1992; various letters congratulating McKenzie on his award of the Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal, 17-24 February 1992; list of Royal Society research grant awards, which includes McKenzie, 27 February 1992; copy letter from McKenzie to Dr Eugene Garfield, Institute for Scientific Information, Inc, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, would like to conduct a study of academics' behaviour through publication patterns but the current ISI citation index does not allow him to identify co-authors, 28 February 1992;
Typescript abstract of paper by Yucel Yilmaz, "Origin of the Southeast Anatolian Metamorphic Massifs", [n.d.]; John Sclater, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA, has finished his commitment to the National Academy of Sciences on the future of US oceanography and is now in an enviable position of having the funding to start whatever new research projects he likes, wants to know McKenzie's opinion on areas in which he could contribute, describes two possible projects on mantle convection and first motion studies on ridge earthquakes, but will probably be quite busy teaching a new undergraduate program at Scripps, differences in opinion between Freeman Gilbert and Ed Frieman in how Scripps should be run, 1 March 1992; letters and proposed plan of action for the European Space Agency's ARISTOTELES mission, 13 February-16 March 1992; letters between McKenzie, Dr Robin E Snowden, Science Officer, British Council, Tokyo, Japan, and Robert Geller, Department of Earth and Planetary Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Japan, concerning a suggestion that McKenzie participate in a British Council sponsored collaborative research trip to Japan, 16 December 1991-23 March 1992; memorandum from Arthur E Maxwell, Institute of Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin (UTIG), Texas, USA, sending schedule for the two-day Celebration of Geophysics in April which will be followed by a meeting of the UTIG Visiting Committee, 9 March 1992, with copy reply from McKenzie informing Maxwell that he is unable to come as he is going to Ankara to advise the Turkish government on seismology and seismic engineering, 23 March 1992; Celal Sengor, I T U Maden Fakultesi, Jeoloji, Istanbul, Turkey, congratulates McKenzie on his Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, sends catalogue of destructive earthquakes, [n.d.], with reply from McKenzie thanking Sengor for both the catalogue and his congratulations, comments that people like giving medals to those who already have them as it is the safe thing to do, wants to arrange to meet up with Sengor and his Turkish colleagues before travelling to Ankara in order to properly cost out his proposals (see previous letter), 22 March 1992; Dave G Roberts, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, recalls his original plans for an Institute of Petroleum, 25 March 1992, with brief copy reply from McKenzie, 27 March 1992;
David J Stevenson, Chairman, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, reminds McKenzie that he had turned down an offer to visit to Caltech as a Fairchild Scholar a number of years ago as he did not want to disrupt his young son's education, as 1993/1994 is the last year of the Fairchild programme wonders if McKenzie will reconsider, 2 April 1992, with brief copy reply from McKenzie jokingly stating that children don't grow up because committees decide funding is to stop, declines reluctantly as he is too busy, 6 April 1992; David Deming, School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA, responds to McKenzie's comments on the behaviour of subsidence and thermal structure of extensional basins in his paper "Overburden rock, temperature and heat flow - essential elements of the petroleum system", 30 March 1992, with copy reply from McKenzie clarifying his points that Deming's argument is actually 15 years out of date and that oil companies can now accurately calculate the maturity levels in extensional basins, 16 April 1992; draft letter from McKenzie to Celal Sengor, [I T U Maden Fakultesi], has a number of questions concerning Sengor's Turkish colleagues following his meeting at Ankara [see letter of 23 March 1992], 19 April 1992; Col Dan G Raschen, Swindon, Wiltshire, England, sends McKenzie an extract from his autobiographical memoir 'Don't Step on a Stonefish!', which concerns coral atolls, wishing to know if his thoughts are accurate, 28 April 1992;
Letter from McKenzie to William 'Bill' Kaula, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, outlining the problems with Kaula's interpretations and comparisons between the plate tectonics of Earth and the planet Venus, 1 June 1992; copy letter from McKenzie to Professor Vladimir Keilis-Borok, International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, decribing the restrictive financial and administrative procedures for hosting visiting scientists at the Bullard Laboratories, 18 June 1992;
Drummond 'Drum' Matthews, Porlock, Somerset, England, enjoyed catching up with McKenzie at an event, and is glad that Bullard Laboratories is doing so well under McKenzie's leadership and was particularly pleased to hear that geophysics now dominates part II of the Cambridge exams which he feels would not have happened if the 'old guard' had not retired, [?July 1992]
Celal Sengor, I T U Maden Fakultesi, deteriorating political situation in the country as a close family friend was recently murdered by the Red Army Faction and the new rector of the ITU is likely to be extremely right wing, no progress on McKenzie's meeting at Ankara, would like to visit McKenzie at Cambridge in the autumn, 3 August 1992; Professor Lawrence W Nichol, Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia, the post of Director of the Research School of Earth Sciences in the Institute of Advanced Studies will soon be vacant following the departure of Kurt Lambeck, wishes to know if McKenzie would like to put his name forward, 23 July 1992, with reply from McKenzie stating if Nichol had asked directly if he wished to apply the answer would have been 'no' but if asked if he were in interested in the role the answer would be 'yes', states that he is extremely happy at Cambridge so would be reluctant to relocate but if the ANU would pay his travel to Australia then he would be willing to visit but on the understanding that he is unlikely to accept, 6 August 1992;
Memorandum from Vance M Lynch, Acting Chairman of the UTIG Visiting Committee, detailing the findings of the committee with a list of members, 1 July 1992, with copy letter from McKenzie to Arthur 'Art' Maxwell, UTIG, resigning from the committee, 24 November 1992; Marc Spiegelman, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University, New York, USA, is weighing up two competing job offers from Lamont and Bristol University and wants McKenzie's opinion, 30 November 1992, with reply from McKenzie advising Spiegelman to choose where he would like to live in the long term rather than what each post offers now, states that he would choose Bristol as he is English and prefers the 'British style of doing science', [n.d.];
Correspondence, precis, recording schedule and agreement for the filming of a BBC Open University programme on the technology behind the exploration of Venus at the Bullard Laboratories, Cambridge, 13 August-21 December 1992. |