| Description | General correspondence of Dan McKenzie, Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, England, January-December 1995. 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:
James Brennan, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, USA, provides an explanation to McKenzie's question of why there is no extreme isotopic shifts towards seawater Sr in island arc basalts, 16 January 1995; letters between McKenzie and Keith O'Nions, Royal Society Research Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, attempting to persuade the latter not to resign his chair, 14-27 January 1995, also departmental memorandum from Ian N Cave, Woodwardian Professor of Geology, University of Cambridge, announcing O'Nion's resignation to take up a professorial post at the University of Oxford, January 1995; letter from Sir James Lighthill, Department of Mathematics, University College London, England, inviting McKenzie to participate in the discussion meeting "Critical Review of Van", organised by by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the Royal Society, 24 January 1995, with copy reply from McKenzie declining as he has yet to be persuaded of its merits, despite the efforts of Seiya Uyeda, instead is far more enthusiastic about earthquake engineering, 27 January 1995, with manuscript reply from Lighthill providing detailed answers to McKenzie's criticism of the scheme, 31 January 1995, which are included in the enclosed 'An outline report of the 9th Meeting of SC-IDNDR', held on 25 May 1994 during the World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, Yokohama, Japan, 23-27 May 1994;
Circular notice for the European Union of Geosciences (EUG) and the European Geophysical Society (EGS) advising their members of the intention to co-ordinate some of their efforts to better serve the geophysics community and seeking suggestions on possible future directions, [n.d.], with copy reply from McKenzie pointing out that European geophysicists are out of step with current research fields, which are mainly geochemical and petrological, and unless the EGS and EUG completely combine their interests in solid Earth studies, the only good meetings on the subject will take place in the US, 1 May 1995; copy letter from McKenzie to Sir Michael Atiyah, President of the Royal Society, London, England, expressing his concern about the Royal Society's involvement with 'VAN', a proposed method of earthquake prediction, urging that any resulting papers are properly reviewed by a seismologist, suggesting Dr Hiroo Kanamori as a candidate, 15 May 1995; correspondence between McKenzie and the producers of the BBC TV programme 'Horizon' regarding McKenzie's complaints about the editing of the programme "Farewell Fantastic Venus" in which the scientific reasoning was cut out, instead leaving the impression of unsubstantiated views on the subject which were comparable with the 'religious nutters' who also appeared on the programme, and he is unlikely to become involved in another BBC project as a result, 11-19 May 1995; Vincent Vacquier, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA, thanks McKenzie for his congratulations on Vacquier's award of the Alexander Agassiz Medal from the US National Academy of Sciences, details how he is adapting his theory on the origin of the Earth's heat following George Wetherill's computer simulation of the formation of terrestrial planets, 26 May 1995; typescript copy of paper: Papazachos, B C, et al "A Note on Two Announcements of the Van Group Concerning Earthquake Prediction in the Area of Thessaloniki (Northern Greece)", 31 May 1995;
Copy letter from McKenzie to Celal Sengor, thanking Sengor for his generosity during their recent holiday and detailing McKenzie's and James Jackson's computer set up and needs for their current project, also forwarding a note from Stuart Paton concerning Sengor's research on the Tarim Basin, 5 September 1995; John Sclater, forwards an obituary of Clive Lister (1936-1995) which he helped write, 6 September 1995; John Lynch, editor of 'Horizon', BBC Television, London, informing McKenzie that American Nova will be broadcasting a re-edited version of the Venus programme which McKenzie took issue with [see 11-19 May above], 25 September 1995, with copy reply from McKenzie thanking Lynch for notifying him of the re-broadcast and thinks it will be an improvement, 26 September 1995;
John C Mutter, Interim Director, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA, delighted that McKenzie has agreed to become the fourth Jardetzky Lecturer, 5 September 1995, with faxed, typescript draft of publicity for the lecture and talk by McKenzie, 27 October 1995;
Copy letter from McKenzie to Keith [O'Nions, University of Oxford], McKenzie is in a quandary as the Royal Society has offered him the research professorship [which O'Nions vacated on his move to Oxford] but only if the University of Cambridge appoint someone to fill his old post as they do not wish to fund departmental staffing, however Cambridge has refused, is therefore reluctantly sounding out the possibility of moving to Oxford University instead with the hope that this will leak out, 23 November [1995]. |