[Coral-List] Guy Cabioch, a sad passing

[David Hopley]

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of our friend and
colleague Guy Cabioch.  Although Guy was still very active it came after a
long illness.  Nonetheless, in recent times he has co-operated in a number
of projects, not least of which was on the Editorial Board of the
Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs : Structure, Form and Process.  Those of
us recognising his passing in this note to Coral-List were also members of
the Editorial Board and can attest to his enthusiastic co-operation.  Also
here and wishing their names to be added to this valediction are those with
whom Guy worked with on other projects, though if all had been added the
list would have been unending.

 

Guy centred his research on New Caledonia  but his work was spread
throughout the French south-west Pacific as is testified by his impressive
bibliography.  He has been a classic carbonate geologist, as can be seen
from his entries in the coral reef encyclopedia : barrier reef (ribbon),
emerged reefs, fore reef (reef front), New Caledonia, post glacial
transgression, Vanuatu.  A further search of the literature however,
indicates just how wide a contribution to reef geology in the south and
south-west Pacific that Guy has made.

 

Not surprisingly, Guy Cabioch's name appears on many committees.  He was a
member of the LOCEAN research team and Vice President of IRD Earth Science
Commission.  Earlier he worked in the UR14, GEOAZUR and PALEOTROPIQUE
research teams.  He joined IRD in 1992 and spent most of his career in New
Caledonia, Vanuatu and French Polynesia studying cores for marine and
palaeoenvironmental work for which he gained international recognition.  In
spite of his illness over the last 10 years, Guy continued his research and
even at present has papers about to be published in Marine Geology
(Quaternary history of western New Caledonia) and in Coral Reefs
(Disappearance of Acropora from the Marquesas).

 

The name of a scientist with Guy Cabioch's reputation will be long
remembered not only by his colleagues in IRD Noumea, but also by those who
appreciated the contact they had with him during the writing of the
encyclopedia including other members of the Editorial Board (Peter Davies,
Terry Done, Eberhard Gischler, Ian Macintyre, Rachel Wood and Colin
Woodroffe), and in much appreciated collaborative research (including Serge
Andrefouet, Rolf Bak, Lucien Montaggioni, Michel Pichon, Carden Wallace and
Jody Webster), a distinguished list to which the addition of my own name is
particularly humbling.

 

David Hopley.

 

 HOME ADDRESS:

8 Lilydale Pocket

IDALIA  

TOWNSVILLE 

QLD  4811

AUSTRALIA

 

PHONE:  +61 07 4729 0671

EMAIL:  david.hopley at bigpond.com