Linc Page, certainly the most colorful and one of the most eminent members of the New Hampshire Geological Society, died at Wolfeboro, N. H. of medical complications on Jan. 14. The society lost a booster, its "anonymous" donor, and a wealth of geological expertise.
He had done it all. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1931 with a major in chemistry and a minor in geology, he mapped glacial geology in New Hampshire for two summers under the tutelage of J. W. Goldthwait. At the same time M. P. Billings was mapping the Littleton-Moosilauke quadrangles, he was busy mapping the bedrock geology of the adjacent Rumney quadrangle as part of his 1937 Ph. D. dissertation at the University of Minnesota. This was followed by 2 years as a geologist in the oil industry. In 1939 he began a 34-year career with the U.S.G.S, first mapping chromite and tin deposits in 7 states, and from 1942 to 1950 pegmatites in many states but principally in South Dakota, evaluating resources of mica, beryl, and lithium and participating in the discovery that pegmatites had a zoned structure. From 1950 to 1960 he was U.S.G.S Assistant Chief Geologist in charge of a major successful exploration program for uranium and thorium, and from 1960 until retirement in 1973, was the U.S.G.S. Geologist in charge of cooperative geological mapping programs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He had travelled widely in 7 European and 10 African countries, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and Japan. He had made tentative arrangements to attend the International Geological Congress in China this year.
If this were all, it would have been impressive, but there was much more. He was a professor at Dartmouth in 1959-60, an adjunct professor at U.N.H. from 1984 onward, and also a professor at Stanford (1971) and Colorado (1989). A consuming interest in nuclear energy was begun through his involvement with uranium exploration, his cooperative work with the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, his service as a technical advisor to the United Nations Atoms for Peaceful Uses, the U. S. National Resource Evaluation Program and the government of Egypt. Long before it was discovered, Linc predicted that, somewhere, evidence of a uranium nuclear reaction within the earth would be found; this was confirmed a few decades ago in Gabon in West Africa. Right to the end, he thought imaginatively and proposed hypotheses to explain many of geology's unsolved riddles.
When Bob Davis died, Linc took over as State Geologist for New Hampshire from 1983-1985, fostering an important program in mapping glacial deposits, to which he contributed generously from his own salary. During this time he also demonstrated once again his remarkable talent, honed from years of experience, for cajoling legislators into collaborating with his objectives. When New Hampshire was targeted in 1986 as a potential host state for a national high-level nuclear waste repository, he was on the N. H. Committee which prepared a successful rebuttal of that proposal.
Many people meeting Linc for the first time might have had the impression that he was gruff and business-like, but this was not the real Linc, as everyone soon recognized. He was kind and generous to a fault, a considerate, caring individual. Because he was dedicated to the education and training of geologists, while he ran the Survey's uranium exploration program, he provided professional training and summer employment to scores of students, many of them from Dartmouth. For many years after he left the Survey he contributed generous financial support to both U.N.H. and Dartmouth to assist thesis studies at both schools. The contacts he made with students were maintained over the years. For example, most recently he was corresponding about sub-littoral geology with a student he had taught at Dartmouth in 1960. He also had faced life's adversities with courage, having lost his wife to ill health, and also having, over a period of many years, brought back to health one of his sons who had been grievously injured in an automobile accident.
Lincoln Ridler Page was a remarkable man who lived life to the fullest, enriching the lives of those fortunate enough to have known him, and contributing substantially to the advancement of his science. Of him we can truly say, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
In keeping with its purpose to advance the science of geology in New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Geological Society has an on-going public outreach program targeted at K-12 students and their teachers. In 1994, the Society began offering a Teacher Travel Scholarship providing financial assistance to help an earth/space science teacher attend a regional or national earth-science related convention, such as the Annual Meeting of the National Science Teacher's Association. 1996 will mark the third year of this award, which has now been named in honor of Linc Page, recognizing his generous endeavors to support the education of New Hampshire geology students.
We wish to thank the anonymous donor for donating the prize for the Mineral Raffle at the January meeting. Matt Wolf was the recipient of a fine specimen of a twinned calcite scalenohedron on hemimorphite. A total of $46.00 was raised for the start of the new year. The proceeds have been earmarked for the Society's outreach programs including the Lincoln R. Page Scholarship and the Classroom Enhancement Grant Program. We are now soliciting donations for the April and October mineral raffles. For those who wish to donate, please contact Greg Kirby or Nelson Eby. Other contributions to our outreach programs, whether they be monetary or a volunteering of your time, are also welcome.
The Society's Spring 1996 Dinner Meeting will be held on April 11, 1996. Suzanne O'Brien of Paragon Environmental Services will present Climatic changes in the Holocene - A glaciochemical analysis of a Greenland ice sheet core. Additional details are published on the back page.
The New England Section of the Association of Engineering Geologists has several upcoming programs of interest to NHGS Members. The next scheduled event is: April 18, 1996, when Rex Morey will discuss "GPR/CPT Studies @ Groundwater Remediation Labs." For more information contact Jutta Hager at 617-893-9700.
The American Institute of Hydrology is holding its annual meeting in Boston this year. The theme of the conference is Hydrology and Hydrogeology of Urban and Urbanizing Areas. The goal of the conference is to "...focus on those issues pertinent to hydrology in urban areas such as groundwater protection and remediation, wetland protection and mitigation, stormwater management and NPDES regulation, water quality, water conservation and re-use, and recent advances in hydrologic modeling." The symposium lasts four days , from April 21-24, 1996 and is headquartered at the 57 Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. For more information you can contact the General Chairman, Dr. Guillermo J. Vincens, at Camp Dresser and McKee, Inc. at (617) 252-8301, FAX: 617-621-2565, or by E-mail: vicensgj@cdm.com.
The 1996 Spring Meeting of the Vermont Geological Society, featuring the presentation of student papers, will be held April 27 at Middlebury College. For more information, contact: Larry Becker at 802-241-3496.
A workshop on Low Flow Sampling Techniques for Ground Water Sampling has been developed by the Maine DEP with participation from the EPA-New England Region. The workshop will consist of a technical presentation on Wednesday, May 29, from 8 to 5 at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in South Portland, ME, followed by a series of half-day field demonstrations to be scheduled. The registration fee is expected to be approximately $50 per person, to cover all course materials, lunch and parking. For more information, contact either Rob Hoey or Troy Smith at the Maine DEP, 207-287-2651.
The 1996 Friends of the Pleistocene field trip is tentatively scheduled for May 31 to June 2, 1996. The headquarters for the trip will be in Machais, Maine. The focus of the trip will be observing evidence for coastal glaciation, paleoclimate and anthropologic evolution during the period of 14,000 to 12,000 bp. For further information you can contact Harold Borns at the Institute for Quaternary Studies, University of Maine/Orono. Hal can be reached at 207-581-2196 or you can E-mail him at borns@maine.maine.edu.
The Society's Annual Summer Field Trip has been tentatively scheduled for Saturday, August 10, 1996. John Brooks has graciously volunteered to lead a field trip to the Isle of Shoals and Ordiorne Point where he completed his Master's thesis on the Geology of the Inner Continental Shelf, Southeast New Hampshire and Maine in 1985.Additional details are published on the back page.
Planning for the 1996 New England Intercollegiate Geologic Conference, to be held in the Mount Washington area on September 26-28, is well underway. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, the New Hampshire Geological Society, and the Mount Washington Observatory. The last time the NEIGC visited this area of New Hampshire was in 1946, when Marland P. Billings convened the event at the Glen House Site on Mount Washington.
The program is very simple: three days of field trips in beautiful fall weather! Currently 16 field trips are planned, covering a variety of topics and regions. In addition to the trips, there will be a welcoming reception on Friday evening, and a banquet Saturday evening; both to be held at the Wildcat Ski Area in Pinkham Notch.
For more information, contact Mark Van Baalen, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, 20 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138; W: 617-495-3237; FAX: 617-495-8839; H: 508-486-4751; e-mail: mvb@harvard.edu, or check out the NEIGC homepage at: http://neigc.org/NEIGC/NEIGC.html
The Society's 1996 Annual Meeting is scheduled for October 10. Additional details will be published in a future issue of The Granite State Geologist.
Currently, the New Hampshire Geological Society publishes a newsletter, The Granite State Geologist, on an approximately quarterly basis. In addition, we publish an annual Membership Directory for the sole use of our members, and we publish limited numbers of handouts for our Field Trips. Over the past year or so, there has been some discussion about the possibilities of publishing more technical material, for the benefit of our members, to further the science of geology in New Hampshire, and to promote public education. Possibilities include technical articles in the newsletter or perhaps an annual Contributions to New Hampshire Geology, as well as at the NHGS's WWW site: http://nhgs.org/NHGS/NHGS.html.
In order to publish technical contributions, however, authors must contribute! So the Society asks members to submit case studies of their experiences in conducting Site Investigations and Remedial Activities throughout the State. These case histories can deal with the experiences of the consultant in conducting subsurface investigations, innovative approaches to remediation, or the experience of working within the NH-DES corrective action program. We feel that by publishing these case studies, NHGS can provide added exposure to the accomplishments of its members, while at the same time giving value-added information to the public regarding the relationships between geology, the environment, and the community. Articles may be up to 1500 words. Simple graphics are also encouraged.
Send submissions to the NHGS, Suite 133, 26 South Main Street, Concord, NH 03301 or by e-mail to tallen@keene.edu. For more information, call Tim Allen at 603-358-2571.
The Society's Spring 1996 Dinner Meeting will be held on April 11, 1996. Suzanne O'Brien of Paragon Environmental Services will present Climatic changes in the Holocene - A glaciochemical analysis of a Greenland ice sheet core. Suzanne will discuss her procedures and results of geochemical analyses, conducted as part of her Master's of Science degree at UNH. The dinner will take place at The Merrimack Hotel in Merrimack, NH. A cash bar begins at 6:00 p.m., with a buffet dinner at 7:00. The cost will be $18.00 for both members and non-members, with a $2 surcharge for those paying at the door. We need an accurate head count so we request your reservations no later than April 8, 1996. For more information, contact Greg Kirby at 603-271-3624
The Annual Summer Field Trip has been tentatively scheduled for Saturday, August 10, 1996. John Brooks has graciously volunteered to lead a field trip to the Isle of Shoals and Ordiorne Point where he completed his Master's thesis on the Geology of the Inner Continental Shelf, Southeast New Hampshire and Maine in 1985. Two options are being considered: the first idea involves a morning excursion to the Isle of Shoals aboard UNH's research ship, followed by an afternoon clambake at Ordiorne Park. Unfortunately, space is limited to 25 to 30 people. Thus a second option would be to run a morning field trip at Ordiorne and head out to the islands in the late morning where a box lunch will be provided. The cruise and tour is approximately four hours long. If you have an opinion either way, please let the Board know. In the mean time, we ask that you pencil in the date on your calendar so that we can have a confirmed head count in the near future.
The 1996 Annual Meeting is scheduled for October 10. As a general rule, the Society's meetings are scheduled on the second Thursday of January, April, and October; while we usually shoot for the first Saturday in August for the Annual Field Trip.
An important feature of each annual meeting of the Society is the election of Officers. We need volunteers now to begin the process of soliciting nominations and putting together the slate of candidates. Members of the Nominating Committee must be members of the Society, but cannot run for office. For more information you can contact Greg Kirby or Nelson Eby.
Last Modified March 28, 1996
The Granite State Geologist, newsletter of the
New Hampshire Geological Society
copyright ©1997 New Hampshire Geological Society
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