Tony Taylor

This article is about the volcanologist Tony Taylor. For other people, see Anthony Taylor .

Tony Taylor

George Anthony Morgan Taylor (born October 30, 1917 in Moree , New South Wales , † August 19, 1972 on Manam ) was an Australian volcanologist .

Life

During the Second World War he served in the Australian Defense Force and was stationed in New Guinea . He then enrolled at the University of Sydney . After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950, he worked for the Commonwealth Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR; today's Geoscience Australia ). On his behalf, he was responsible for the reconstruction and re-establishment of the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory (RVO), which had been destroyed in the course of Allied bombardments .

In early 1951, the BMR sent him to the Lamington volcano in Papua New Guinea , which unexpectedly showed rapidly increasing activity. On January 21, there was a violent eruption with a magnitude of 4 on the volcanic explosion index , killing 2,942 people. Taylor arrived at the mountain the next day. In the following months he climbed to the crater every day or made overflights and set up his camp at the foot of the mountain in the danger zone in order to be able to carry out continuous measurements. His exact predictions of further outbreaks and conscientious investigations have minimized the endangerment of auxiliary workers and made a decisive contribution to the rescue of local residents. He continued to research the region until his death. His pioneering publications on pyroclastic flows and the growth of lava domes are still among the most comprehensive and reliable analyzes of their kind, and his treatise on the events at Lamington, published in 1958, is now considered a classic of the volcanological literature on the analysis of large pelean eruptions . He studied and documented the volcanic and seismic activity of Papua New Guinea and became a luminary in view of the geological situation of this part of the world.

After the Lamington eruption, he returned to Canberra and received his Master of Science degree from the University of Sydney in 1957 . He was later resident geologist in Port Moresby from February 1961 . At the age of only 54, Taylor died of a myocardial infarction while doing fieldwork on the beach on the small volcanic island of Manam . He left behind his wife, son and daughter. Taylor was buried in Reid, a suburb of Canberra.

Honors

On April 22, 1952, the London Gazette announced that the British Queen Elizabeth II had awarded the volcanologist the George Cross in recognition of his bravery and selflessness .

In addition, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal and during his military service the Pacific Star , the Australia Service Medal 1939-1945 and the War Medal 1939-1945 .

To honor his work, Geoscience Australia, the RVO and the Papua New Guinea High Commission in Australia presented a series of ten posters in Canberra on August 19, 2002 - the 30th anniversary of his death - raising public awareness of the volcanic dangers in Papua New Guinea and the activities of the RVO - in whose premises they were also installed for visitor information - are to sharpen. They were created as part of a project by the Australian Agency for International Development . Taylor's wife, son, daughter and grandson were also present at the celebrations.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neil Williams: "Comment" (PDF; 2.6 MB). In: AUSGEO news , September 2002, № 67, page 3. Retrieved from ga.gov.au on March 18, 2013.
2. ↑ Tony Taylor: "The 1951 Eruption of Mount Lamington, Papua". In: Department of National Development, Bureau of Mineral Resources, geology and Geophysics Bulletin , № 38, 1958, Canberra.
3. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 39519, HMSO, London, April 22, 1952, p. 2165 ( PDF , accessed March 18, 2013, English).