[Coral-List] Ian Macintyre's passing

[Dennis Hubbard]

Ian will be greatly missed by those who knew him. When I arrived at West
Indies Lab in 1977, I was fresh out of graduate school; he and Walter Adey
had just published what I still consider to be the seminal paper on the
development of Holocene reefs as rising sea level broke over what are now
submerged banks (leading to the origins of the term "bank-barrier reef").
Ian was an early mentor who started me thinking about reefs in a geologic
context. He was a fountain of information and always eager to share his
knowledge (and sometimes resources) with those trying to build on the solid
foundations he had created. While we occasionally came to disagree on
certain assumptions (how... and how fast... reefs build), all my early
ideas were built on the foundations he created for all of us. He started
many of the discussions we are still having about the ability of coral
reefs to keep up with rising sea level.

What many in the reef community may not know is how much of a contribution
Ian made to what we might call the "logistics" of reef science". When I was
starting out, the "Coral Reef Symposium" was organized by the *International
Association of Biological Oceanography*. Ian was a critical member of that
group and, when  the *Coral Reef Society* evolved, Ian was its first
president. In classical form he went into the Smithsonian collections and
pulled out T Wayland Vaughan's (the first reef geomorphologist?) ruler to
serve as the septer for the presidency; Iand  believe it still is. He also
edited the *Atoll Research Bulletin*, the flagship journal for the
Smithsonian.

Those who work in reef geology are (or should be) aware of his tremendous
contributions to coral-reef science. Those of us who were fortunate  enough
to know him as a colleague, mentor or friend have all
been fortunate to have stood in his shadow. Even when we published our core
results from eastern St. Croix that refuted some of Ian's (and Walter's)
earlier conclusions, I was compelled to acknowledge the advantages of
"standing on the shoulders of giants". Ian will be missed as a colleague, a
mentor and a consummate gentleman.

Dennis


-- 
Dennis Hubbard
Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"