[Coral-List] FW: Coral-List post from vladimir.kosmynin at dep.state.fl.us requires approval

[Kosmynin, Vladimir]

Dear subscribers of Coral-list,
On November the 7th will be the 80th birthday of our colleague, the well-recognized coral reef scientist Gene Shinn.  He made considerable contribution to coral reef studies, and although he calls himself a geologist, his work was rather interdisciplinary, and one can find that the topics of research  in his publications cover geology, geomorphology, hydrology of coral reefs, as well as biological aspects of reef-building corals.  He conducted research in many countries, in many different reefs throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, but his real passion was always the Florida Keys and coral reefs of the Florida Reef Tract.  He was born in Key West and spent years and years conducting research on corals and reefs in the Keys; he knows the Florida Keys like his own backyard.  He has photos of the same reefs that were taken for over 50 years, which is an absolutely unique record.  I read his articles years ago, when I was a student, and was lucky to meet him in person years later and to become friends.

Gene gave a lot of his time to popularization of coral reef science, and I personally learned from him that the most important part of this work is when you bring science to bureaucrats, because otherwise it is impossible to make them aware of environmental and scientific issues as most of them never read scientific literature...and believe they are not supposed to be reading it.

I don't want to describe details of Gene's biography, I will just refer you to his wonderful book that Gene recently published:  Bootstrap Geologist: My Life in Science (Dr. Vassil Zlatarski already wrote about this book in the Coral-list).  Gene is a  wonderful story teller, and I guess many of you enjoyed reading the short version of his writing about the Florida Keys history, which he posted here in the Coral-List not long ago.

His colleagues who worked with Gene directly can tell you much more about him than I can, and I hope they would.
I just want to send Gene greetings on his 80th birthday through our List and wish him to remain productive and successful in his work in reef science for years to come..

Vladimir Kosmynin





Vladimir N. Kosmynin, Ph.D.
Environmental Consultant
Beaches, Mines and ERP Support Program
Division of Water Resource Management
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road,
MS 3590
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
e-mail: vladimir.kosmynin at dep.state.fl.us<mailto:vladimir.kosmynin at dep.state.fl.us>
Tel: (850)414-7817
Fax: (850)245-8499