It is with sadness that the department recognizes the passing of Dr. Alan Smith *63 on August 13.  Alan had a long, distinguished career at the University of Cambridge, and also kept close ties with this Department.  Indeed, Alan was one of our most involved and supportive graduate alumni.  He participated in most of the Geosciences Graduate Student Alumni field trips.

Alan’s 1963 Princeton dissertation title reflects a classic geologic focus (Structure and Stratigraphy of the Northwest Whitefish Range, Lincoln County, Montana), but he could not escape the influence of being a graduate student during those foundational years of plate tectonic theory at Princeton. Thus while his career included significant contributions in many areas, he is perhaps most-widely know for the first computer-aided reconstructions of what came to be known as Laurasia and Gondwanaland (Bullard, Everett and Smith 1965, The fit of the continents around the Atlantic, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 258, 41–51).  To view a video clip of Alan discussing this work and displaying the unfurled maps (held open by rocks in the corners, of course), see the British Library’s “Voices of Science” feature here:

https://www.bl.uk/voices-of-science/interviewees/alan-smith

In an accompanying audio clip, Alan partially credits his involvement in this work to having had “some experience with computers at Princeton.”

In addition to continued work on continental reconstructions, Alan’s research included work on paleomagnetism, ophiolite suites, the geology of Greece, and the geologic time scale.  These and other career contributions were recognized by numerous awards, including the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society of London in 2008. Comprehensive retrospectives of Alan’s life can be found at the following sites:

https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/dr-alan-smith-1937-2017

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2017/08/23/dr-alan-smith-geologist-obituary/
(To read the whole article you can get a 24-hr subscription for 1£.)