| Description | Papers of Alan Gilbert SMITH, [1955-2016], comprising:
Photographs and portraits, [1950s-2000s]; undergraduate student notes for the Natural Science Tripos at the University of Cambridge, 1955-1959; research for and copy of ‘Geology of the Northeast Whitefish Range Northwest Montana’, PhD, University of Princeton, USA, 1959-1963; Correspondence, contracts, CVs and bibliographies concerning appointments at Princeton University, Cambridge University, and Caltech, 1958-2003;
Scientific and academic correspondence, whilst a member of staff a the University of Cambridge, 1962-2011;
Background research including field notes, rock samples, photographs and bibliographic references, [1960s-2000s];
Scientific papers and research files, notably the 'Bullard Fit' and the continents around the Atlantic, 1963-1965; Belt-Purcell Supergroup, 1963-2016; Stratigraphy & sediments, 1967-2012; Plate tectonics & Continental Drift, 1971-2011; Greece & Ophiolites, 1972-2001;
Digital mapping & Cambridge Paleomap Services Ltd (CPSL), [1970s-2000s];
Teaching notes and field guides for students studying geology at the University of Cambridge, [1960s-2000s];
Advisory records, [1970s-2000s], notably Smith's involvement in the International Commission on Stratigraphy which produces the official Geological Time Scale;
Field guides, programmes and abstracts of conferences attended by Smith, 1967-[2000s]. |
| Administrative History | Alan Gilbert Smith was born on 24 February 1937 in Watford, Hertfordshire. His father Benjamin was an inventor and engineer who made ball-bearings for the Royal Navy in the Second World War. Between 1942-1947 he attended the primary schools of Merryhill and Ashfield in Bushey, Watford, before enrolling at Watford Boys' Grammar School where he won the Minor Open Scholarship to study Natural Sciences at St John's Cambridge in 1955, graduating with a BA in 1959.
In the summer of 1959 Smith became field assistant to W E Bonini on the crustal seismic programme organised jointly by the Universities of Princeton and Wisconsin. There he learned to compute and write gravity computation programmes. Supervised by J C Maxwell and F B Van Houten, Smith undertook his PhD thesis on "The structure and stratigraphy of the Whitefish Range, Montana" at Princeton University, where he was also awarded the Charles Munn Fellowship (1960) and Procter Fellowship (1961). Smith's work established the foundation of the stratigraphic understanding of the Belt Supergroup which remains to this day.
He returned to Cambridge in 1963 as Research Assistant to Edward 'Teddy' Bullard in the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics. Debates over the possbilities of continental drift were raging throughout the geological community. 'Fixists' such as Harold Jeffreys (1891-1989) refused to believe the continents moved, going so far as cutting out the shapes of continents in paper to prove they didn't fit together. However Harry Hess (who had visited Cambridge in 1962) had postulated his theory of seafloor spreading and it appeared to offer a mechanism for the movement for the continents. Keen to settle the matter, Bullard (who veered towards being a fixist himself) commissioned the graduate student Jim Everett to programme the University's mainframe computer, and Smith provided the geological knowledge. Ignoring the current coastlines, Smith and Everett instead used the more geologically correct continental shelf line which is at a depth of 500 fathoms (3000 feet). South America and Africa fitted together almost perfectly, and with the removal of Iceland (being volcanic and therefore of any age) and the rotation of Spain they found they could fit together Europe and North America too and create the ancient supercontinent of Pangea. The result, published as "The fit of the continents around the Atlantic" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1965), is now known as the 'Bullard Fit'. The reconstruction of palaeocontinents, pioneering the use of computing in the subject, would concern Smith for the rest of his career, notably reconstructing Gondwana with Tony Hallam in 1970.
From 1964 Smith's interests widened, when he began concerning himself with the geological timescale - later working on the first three editions of ‘A geologic time scale’ (1982, 1990, 2004) for the International Commission on Stratigraphy. From 1965 he conducted a field mapping project of the highly deformed ophiolite-chert terrain in Greece, to unravel the Mesozoic continental margin sequence and understand the origin and emplacement of ophiolite complexes and related rocks. Smith would also rope in a number of his research students to help undertake the project, such as Euan Nisbet who worked on the Othris mountains. In 1981 he began a project investigating past magnetic field and plate motions with Fred Vine, and from 1990 analysing the evolution of Tethyan margins with Nicky White.
Smith spent most of his academic career at the University of Cambridge, as University Demonstrator (1964-1969) then University Lecturer, (1969 for a period of 3 years but made permanent in 1971), retiring in 2004. His inherent modesty and shyness meant that he was reluctant to draw attention to his scientific achievements.
Alan Gilbert Smith died on 13 August 2017.
HONOURS AND AWARDS
1970 - Sedgwick Prize, University of Cambridge
1976 - Lyell Fund, Geological Society
1981 - Bigsby Medal, Geological Society
2004 - Medal from Aristotle University, Thessalonika for his work on Greece
2006 - Mary B Ansari Best Reference Work Award 2006 from the Geoscience Information Society (GIS) for an outstanding geoscience publication (A Geologic Time Scale 2004, edited by Felix M Gradstein, James G Ogg and Alan G Smith)
2007 - Distinguished Career Award, International Division, Geological Society of America
2008 - Lyell Medal, Geological Society |