Biographical Memoirs Volume 87 (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn, Jr.
Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn, Jr.
Pages 92-109
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From page 92... ...
Massachusetts Cambridge, Office, News University Harvard the of Courtesy
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. The dramatic discontinuity between the abundantly fossiliferous Cambrian sediments in Wales and in the Grand Canyon, for example, and the barren igneous and sedimentary deposits prior to 93
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At the end of 1950 Robert B Shrock, at a meeting of the Geological Society of America, gave to Elso Barghoorn some black rock samples that he had received from Stanley Tyler, a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin.
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Barghoorn (the professors did not yet address each other by the first name) , Tyler wrote, "I am sending you under separate cover a thin section of the Michigamme shale associated with the coal, which I believe contains a fairly large quantity of the amber material .
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There is one existing blue green alga which could conceivably make a similar pattern .
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"The black carbonaceous material certainly looks like organic matter to me." The collection of beautifully preserved enigmatic microfossils at this site were soon added to those of the basal Gunflint Iron Formation from Schreiber Beach. Tyler wrote, "A second slide from the algal chert [is from]
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From page 98... ...
Robert Shrock wrote on December, 14, 1953, to Tyler, "Dear Stan: I spent last Friday afternoon with Elso Barghoorn and had a wonderful time looking at the flora which you have unearthed in the Pre-Cambrian. It would be a tremendous understatement to say that I was thrilled, I was fully prepared for what I saw after what you and Elso have been telling me for the past several years, but even with such preparation I was amazed at the excellence of preservation of such tiny plants." Shrock goes on to urge publication "not only in the United States but elsewhere" and continues, "I think your discovery is of such great importance that announcement of it should be made in all the common languages and in the biological as well as paleontological journals." The Gunflint microbiota was documented by publication in 1954 with a short joint paper that announced the discovery.
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From page 99... ...
Indeed, they founded a new formal paleontological field, "Precambrian Paleobiology." Elso Barghoorn was born on June 30, 1918, in New York City, or as he liked to put it, remembering wistfully the rural character of his first home: in "Queens Village on Long Island." During his boyhood the Barghoorn family moved to Dayton, Ohio, where Elso's interest in both rural life and natural history blossomed. Long summer hours spent curled in the crotch of a tree with books about science or exploration set Elso on his course toward discovery.
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Tropical environments and fungal decay found common focus when World War II began. Called in 1943 from his first faculty position at Amherst College, Elso reported to Barro Colorado Island in Panama, where he spent the duration of the war conducting research on a problem that plagued Allied troops in the Pacific theater: fungal degradation of canvas tents, clothing, food, and even optical equipment where lenses were mounted with organic glues.
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At the same time, Elso and his colleagues expanded paleobiological research on Precambrian rocks to include biogeochemistry as well as the fossil morphologies traditionally studied by paleontologists (Knoll, 2003)
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Although he was shy and avoided purely social events and meetings, he enjoyed intense personal scientific relations with many of his nearly 89 coauthors. His eclectic tastes are revealed by perusal of the thesis projects of his nearly two dozen Ph.D.
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He helped develop a strategy for biological aspects of the exploration of the entire solar system and sought, but did not find, signs of life in the returned Apollo lunar samples and in the Orgeuil meteorite that landed in France in the nineteenth century. His long-standing interest in the red neighbor, especially the Viking missions to Mars, would have been prelude to Elso's fascination with the data currently streaming from the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
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From page 104... ...
Elso Barghoorn received many honors during his productive career, including a New York Botanical Garden award for "outstanding contributions to fundamental aspects of botany" in 1966, the Botanical Society of America's Certificate of Merit in 1968, the Hayden Memorial Award of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1968, and the Charles D Walcott Award of the National Academy of
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A book contract from Lewis Thomas's Commonwealth Book Fund committee sat on his desk from 1980 until he died. The committee had urged him to write up his scientific life and to encourage him they even sponsored a superb typist (Geraldine Kline)
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His full contribution, including the Commonwealth Book Fund typescripts (in possession of L.M.) and the rest of his writings and correspondence banked in the archives of the Harvard University Library, are worthy of further attention by historians of twentieth-century science.
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From page 107... ...
Anthracitic coal from Precambrian upper Huronian black shale of the Iron River District, Northern Michigan.
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Extraterrestrial biogenic organization of organic matter: The hollow spheres of the Orgueil meteorite. Space Life Sci.
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Archean microfossils showing cell division from the Swaziland system of South Africa. Science 198:396-398.
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