Frank Brown (geologist)

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Frank Brown, 2011

Frank Harold Brown (born October 24, 1943 in Willits , Mendocino County , California , † September 30, 2017 in Salt Lake City , Utah ) was an American geologist and geochemist . Due to his expertise , numerous hominine fossils along the Ethiopian Omo River and in the vicinity of Lake Turkana in Kenya (in the so-called Turkana Basin ) could be reliably dated . Only the age determinations of the numerous layers of finds that he worked out enabled the paleoanthropologists to classify finds from East Africa historically , which contributed significantly to the reconstruction of human tribal history .

Life

Frank Brown (as he called himself, his maiden name was Francis) was the fourth child of Francis Edward Brown and Vivien Clarice Brown. The parents ran a small farm in California's Redwood Valley , mainly growing grapes ( Redwood Valley AVA ), fruit and vegetables. He attended Redwood Valley Elementary School for eight years and then Ukiah High School in Ukiah . He then studied geology at the University of California, Berkeley , where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 1965 and his doctoral degree ( Ph.D. ) in 1971 and also worked as a research assistant between 1966 and 1971 .

In 1971 he moved to a position as assistant professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he was promoted to associate professor in 1976 and professor of geology and geophysics in 1980 . From 1991 he was director of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences for 25 years .

Frank Brown was married to Theresa Ann Bauhs from 1973 until their divorce in 1994; the marriage resulted in two daughters. Together with his daughters, he was busy recording an oral history of his career and experiences during his research until shortly before his death .

research

As a student, Frank Brown was already involved in field studies in the south of Ethiopia between 1966 and 1974 thanks to his mentors Garniss Curtis and Francis Clark Howell as part of the US contingent of the Omo Research Expedition as a geological expert , in the early 1970s at the same time as u . a. also Donald Johanson . In 1966 he was initially responsible for mapping the site, but soon became the lead geologist of the US team for dating the geological outcrops (initially specifically the Shungura Formation ). Further research stays in the 1970s took him to Libya , Uganda , Kenya and Tanzania, and in 1980 to the Nihewan site in the People's Republic of China .

From 1980 onwards, Brown began dating the layers of the Koobi Fora site in Kenya, a task that kept him busy until 2005. Ultimately, he succeeded in developing a model for dating found layers that spanned hundreds of kilometers over the area along the Omo River and the region around Lake Turkana, by arranging more than 300 layers of volcanic ash in a chronological order that had been in previous ones four million years ago. Some of these layers are ten meters thick, others two millimeters thick, and they also differ in their chemical composition. Together with colleagues, he dated more than 30 of these ash layers using the potassium-argon method and further layers using paleomagnetism , so that fossil finds - including hundreds of hominine fossils - are now reliable based on the layer sequences he clarified and the like. a. can also be dated in the Middle Awash in Ethiopia. In Koobi Fora this is sometimes the case. a. for fossils of Paranthropus boisei , Homo habilis , Homo rudolfensis and Homo ergaster , in the Awash region this concerns u. a. Finds of Ardipithecus kadabba , Ardipithecus ramidus , Australopithecus afarensis , Australopithecus garhi , Australopithecus anamensis and Homo erectus . In 1984, for example, Brown managed to reliably date the fossils of the Nariokotome boy , the best preserved skeleton of a Homo erectus , and in 1999 he co-authored the first description of Kenyanthropus .

In an appraisal of his life's work from 2015 it says:

“Paleoanthropologists and archaeologists will know that it is primarily Frank Brown who created the stratigraphic and palaeographic reference system for the early days of human evolution. What you probably cannot assess is the enormous effort involved, spread over almost five decades and thousands of square kilometers of a wild, desolate landscape. "

- Author: Geological Society of America :

In Kenya and Ethiopia in particular, Brown supported the training of local geologists by specifically integrating students into his team and, with the Francis H. Brown African Scholarship Fund , enabling scholarships to be awarded even after his death.

Honors

Frank Brown has received several faculty's Outstanding Teaching Awards. In 2015 he received the Rip Rapp Archaeological Geology Award from the Geological Society of America .

Fonts (selection)

  • with AM Martz: Chemistry and Mineralogy of Some Plio-Pleistocene Tuffs from the Shungura Formation, Southwest Ethiopia. In: Quaternary Research. Volume 16, No. 2, 1981, pp. 240-257, doi: 10.1016 / 0033-5894 (81) 90047-8
  • Tulu Bor Tuff at Koobi Fora correlated with the Sidi Hakoma Tuff at Hadar. In: Nature . Volume 300, 1982, pp. 631-633, doi: 10.1038 / 300631a0
  • with AM Sarna-Wojcicki, CE Meyer and PH Roth: Ages of tuff beds at East African early hominid sites and sediments in the Gulf of Aden. In: Nature. Volume 313, 1985, pp. 306-308, doi: 10.1038 / 313306a0
  • with John Harris, Richard Leakey and Alan Walker : Early Homo erectus skeleton from west Lake Turkana, Kenya. In: Nature. Volume 316, 1985, pp. 788-792, doi: 10.1038 / 316788a0
  • with Jahn Harris and Meave Leakey: Stratigraphy and paleontology of Pliocene and Pleistocene localities west of Lake Turkana, Kenya. In: Contributions in Science. No. 399, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles 1988.
  • with Meave Leakey , Fred Spoor et al .: New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages. In: Nature. Volume 410, 2001, pp. 433-440, doi: 10.1038 / 35068500
  • with Ian McDougall and John G. Fleagle : Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. In: Nature. Volume 433, 2005, pp. 733-736, doi: 10.1038 / nature03258

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Brown (1943-2017). Geologist who helped to build the timeline for the origins of humankind. On: nature.com of December 5, 2017, doi: 10.1038 / d41586-017-07832-2
  2. ^ Francis Brown, 1943-2017. Obituary in The Salt Lake Tribune, October 8, 2017
  3. ↑ Biography on the University of Utah web server
  4. ^ Obituary by the Department of Geology & Geophysics at the University of Utah (PDF). On: earth.utah.edu , accessed December 16, 2017
  5. ^ Frank Brown Memorial Service of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences on facebook of November 12, 2017
  6. ↑ The other two contingents came from Kenya (management: Louis Leakey ) and France (management: Camille Arambourg ).
  7. ↑ a b c 2015 Rip Rapp Archaeological Geology Award. At: geosociety.org , accessed December 16, 2017
  8. ^ U remembers Francis 'Frank' Brown. University of Utah obituary dated October 4, 2017
  9. ^ Francis H. Brown African Scholarship Fund. In: leakeyfoundation.org , accessed December 16, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Brown, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brown, Frank Harold; Brown, Francis Harold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Willits , Mendocino County , California
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 2017
Place of death Salt Lake City , Utah