[Coral-List] Obituary for Dr Robert N Ginsburg

[William Precht]

As most of you know, Dr Robert Ginsburg from the University of Miami passed
away last year.

Bob was a world renown carbonate sedimentologist and coral reef scientist.

The person who knew him best and worked with him the longest was Gene
Shinn. Gene wrote a spectacular obituary that was recently published that
follows the career and life of Bob Ginsburg (see link attached below).

As Bob would always say to his students - we stand on the shoulders of
those who came before us - for Bob this was a tribute to folks like Charles
Darwin, James Dana, Johannes Walther, Alfred Mayor, and especially  T.
Wayland Vaughan.   For many in our field today, we stand on Bob’s shoulders
and we should never diminish the impact of his pioneering work.

Everyone should take a moment and read Gene’s tribute. This will help to
underscore the responsibility we all have about not forgetting the
foundations of the past while working towards a better of understanding of
the scientific complexities that we know and love as coral reefs.

Bob certainly had a huge impact on my career and we had many long,
sometimes painful conversations about our responsibilities as scientists.
At the end of the day,  it was the bond of scientific discovery and
dedication to scholarship that kept our often strained relationship
intact.  For me, these are conversations that I will always cherish and
lessons that I try to pass along to my students and colleagues everyday.

Special thanks to Gene for leaving a record of Bob’s legacy for all of us
to read.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dep2.76

Enjoy,

Bill


-- 
William F. Precht

 “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice
you have”

Bob Marley