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Book Of Remembrance Of

Mervyn Paterson

This book collects condolences and remembrances of Mervyn Paterson from his friends and colleagues in the world of geoscience, upon which he made such a major impact.

The following is a URL link to the recording of the (non-religious) funeral service:    https://v2.streaming.funeralsuite.com.au/e/AGqh0JhS 

This page will ask for a code which is: 1030 – if you put this number in it will take you to a page where you can stream the service or download a link.

Donations can be made to the Mervyn and Katalin Paterson Fellowship, which supports overseas travel for ANU graduate students via: https://www.anu.edu.au/giving/impact-stories/vale-mervyn-paterson

The following obituary is provided by his ANU colleague Ian Jackson:

Mervyn Paterson (1925-2020) spent his formative early years in remote rural South Australia before the family moved to the Adelaide Hills. In order to attend the Adelaide Technical High School and night school, he boarded with his grandmother in Adelaide during the week. His subsequent studies at the University of Adelaide, involving a strong emphasis on practical metallurgy, culminated in his graduation in 1943 (aged 18!) with a Bachelor of Science (Engineering). He then moved to Melbourne where he worked on the physics of metal fatigue for the CSIR Division of Aeronautics recently established at Fisherman’s Bend. His years at CSIR (later CSIRO) included substantial interruptions for doctoral research at the University of Cambridge and a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Chicago. His PhD research, supported by an Angas Engineering Scholarship supplemented by CSIR, involved X-ray diffraction of deformed metals, under the supervision of Egon Orowan, one of the co-discoverers of the role of dislocations in the plastic deformation of metals. At International House at the University of Chicago he met his future wife Katalin – a brave young woman who had fled her native Hungary following the communist takeover, and completed undergraduate studies in Paris, before moving to Chicago for postgraduate study.

Mervyn Paterson was recruited to the fledgling Department of Geophysics at ANU as a Reader in Crystal Physics by Professor John Jaeger, and arrived in Canberra in early 1953.  The appointment by an applied mathematician of a metallurgical engineer to study rock deformation was an indication of Jaeger’s commitment to bring relevant expertise from the physical sciences into the earth sciences. Mervyn Paterson’s long and successful career at the ANU was founded on his flair for the design and development of innovative equipment, constructed in house, for the experimental deformation of geological materials under conditions of high pressure and temperature. His early work included studies of kinking and folding in phyllite, the mechanical properties of serpentinite, and seminal investigations of the transition with increasing pressure from brittle to ductile deformation. A comprehensive overview of brittle-field rock deformation was presented in Mervyn’s influential 1978 monograph, later updated in collaboration with Teng-fong Wong. Later in his career, in collaboration with his colleagues and his many students, he worked intensively on the plastic deformation of quartz, on the rheology of olivine-rich rocks of the Earth’s upper mantle, and on laboratory studies of seismic-wave attenuation.

By the time of Mervyn’s ‘retirement’ in 1990, his internally heated high-pressure apparatus for experimental rock deformation was clearly the instrument of choice for experimental studies of rock deformation. Through his company Paterson Scientific Instruments, and later in collaboration with the ANU’s Australian Scientific Instruments, he responded to pent-up demand by delivering such equipment of ever-increasing sophistication to leading laboratories worldwide. Recognising the importance to students of the chance to travel overseas to attend major conferences and visit other universities, Mervyn established and funded the Mervyn and Katalin Paterson Fellowship which annually provides such opportunities for ANU PhD students.

Recognition of his research achievements includes election to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science, the Mineralogical Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and award in 2004 of the AGU’s lifetime-achievement Walter H. Bucher Medal in recognition of original contributions to the basic knowledge of crust and lithosphere. Mervyn passed away peacefully on Thursday 4 June at St Andrews Village, Hughes. Mervyn and Katalin Paterson are survived by their children Elizabeth and Barrie and their families.

Ian Jackson 7 June 2020

 

Book Owner: E.Rutter

Book Size:  200 Messages

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Alexandre SCHUBNEL, Laboratoire de Géologie, ENS PARIS, France

The first time I met Mervyn Paterson was during my masters training at Stonybrook with Teng-Fong Wong, who came in the lab. one day telling me a famous professor from Australia was visiting the next day and whether I would like to join for dinner.  I was 21 year old when on that night I drank the best wines I had ever tasted in a small restaurant of Port Jefferson, NYC.   I met Mervyn again  – years later  – at ETH Zürich as I was visiting Luigi Burlini’s lab. and as Australian Scientific Instruments engineers – accompanied by Mervyn –  were there to upgrade the Patersons #6 and #9. I remember, looking at the rig partially dismantled on the floor, being completely amazed at how Mervyn had been able to design those machines, which seemed to have reached some sort of mechanical perfection.   Five years ago, I was lucky to spend an entire week with him in Canberra, as he gave me access to all the hand-drawings he made with a Rotring pen. I remember spending most of my days staring at these – true pieces of art –  and being more and more convinced, indeed, the…
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Chris Wilson

From Chris Wilson: Mervyn was a true gentleman, who inspired many of us, both during and well after we completed our PhDs at ANU and well into our careers. My first contact with Mervyn was as an undergraduate from Sydney University, when Bruce Hobbs suggested attending a structural geology workshop in Canberra. Embedded in my memory, from those days as a young student, were Mervyn’s early inspirational gatherings/meetings at ANU with significant internationally respected scientists such as Win Means, Lionel Weiss, John Christie, Rob Coe, Rob Twiss and many others. These set of meetings certainly were inspirational and the forerunner of the Geological Society of Australia’s SGTSG. Memories of the informal discussion evenings that Mervyn organized with wine and cheese at ANU will never be forgotten. Mervyn’s visit to me at the University of Leiden in the 70’s and on the numerous occasions, when he would be in Melbourne. These were always accompanied by some very fundamental and inspiring discussions about deformation. This happened again on one particular visit while I was there working with the Paterson apparatus in Zurich. The legacy Mervyn left behind will always be remembered.  To Elizabeth and Barrie I send my sincere condolences.  Sincere Regards, Chris…
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Jesse Shore

I was sorry to hear of Mervyn’s passing. He was an amazing scientist to work with. I extend my condolences to his family….
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Stefan Schmid

The years I had the privilege to spend during 1974-1976 in Mervyn’s lab are unforgettable for me. Without any doubt this stay formed the basis for my entire academic life. I owe Mervyn so much, not only in in terms of science, by teaching me careful and rigorous thinking when analyzing data.  Also from a human point of view he and his wife Katalin were wonderful. The warm reception they gave our family when arriving in Canberra after 26 hours travel from Switzerland are also unforgettable. Soon after our revival Mervyn took me tom excursion to South and Central Australia to look at rocks around Woodroffe Mountain and Alice Springs, where be joined Lionel Weiss and Hansrudi Wenk, hunting pseudotachylites and other rocks such as famous Heavytree Quartzite and spending the evenings with conversations around the campfire. May he and his wife Katalin rest in peace.   Stefan…
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John Wheeler

I met Mervyn at many conferences we engaged in conversation often, focussed mainly on theoretical aspects of rock deformation: pressure solution, granular flow and the like. I remember him explaining with animation his work with Orowan, a metallurgist, during Mervyn’s time at Cambridge: a reminder of how his skills reached beyond Earth science. I also recall an evening meal beside the lake at Zurich with Mervyn and ETH scientists. Conversation lubricated by wine, but Mervyn sat back and listened, just interjecting when he heard the science going off track – and enjoying the wine. I heard of his passing the same day as I was to give a talk to metamorphic geologists on interactions between stress and chemical processes, and Mervyn appeared on the first slide. His 1973 paper on that topic remains a key reference, almost 50 years later….
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Georg Dresen

From Georg Dresen: Memories of Mervyn in Potsdam.   After a brief first encounter with Mervyn in Cambridge we later interacted quite a bit during my visit at RSES and his multiple visits at GFZ in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. As intimidating as he was scrutinizing my post-doc project at MIT, his support for starting the lab in Potsdam was crucial. After some hick-ups during installation of PI Ltd. machine no. 4, Mervyn came by repeatedly to simply make sure that we were doing it right. Not an easy job as the photo shows. Listening to his lectures was a real privilege and enormously self-assuring for all of us at the time. During his visits, we shared many thoughts on science, wine, food and life in general that left a mark with us and brought Mervyn close to our hearts. Michael and me listening to Mervyn’s 101 on the apparatus in 1994. After discussing all the potential safety issues required by stringent German safety laws, we later realized that our first provisional lab was located right above a 500 kg WWII dud bomb!…
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Stephen Cox

What an amazing experience it has been to know Mervyn Paterson and to learn from him over several decades. I have a short story to recount about Mervyn, involving red wine (of course), spectacular rocks, and Mervyn’s engineering design skills. Back in 1986, on my first stint at ANU, Mervyn decided we should do a road trip in his car, from Canberra to Adelaide, to join a field excursion to look at the mid- to deep crustal geology of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. We left Canberra early in the morning with the intention of stopping overnight in Mildura, before heading on to Adelaide the next morning – that first leg was meant to be about 800 km, with about 400 km for the final leg. However, when we got to Mildura late in the day, Mervyn enquired whether I had enough stamina left to drive a further 200 km to Renmark. He suggested there was a very nice motel to stay there overnight. So, after 1000 km of driving, we eventually made it to Renmark in time for a very enjoyable (and much deserved!) dinner. Next morning Mervyn was very keen to set off early, even though…
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Bruce Hobbs

Mervyn Paterson. I am indebted to Mervyn Paterson for his great influence on my life. When I was a struggling PhD student at Sydney University around 1962 Mervyn organised his first structural geology conference at ANU and somehow I was invited. There I met Lionel Weiss who was at that stage my idol. I used to carry his papers around in my rucksack in the bush and sit on a rock and read them when I couldn’t understand some refolded mess. At the time Mervyn and Lionel were heavily engaged with symmetry and kink-folding, subjects they were eager to share with others. Later Mervyn organised a field trip to Olary in South Australia where I met John Christie who invited me to visit UCLA to work with him and David Griggs. Those field trips and conferences organised by Mervyn ultimately morphed into the highly successful SGTSG meetings that continue to this day. My regard for Mervyn was (and still is) immense. At that stage I really wanted to build some kind of mathematical framework for structural geology and Mervyn seemed to be able to do these things with ease. I followed his every word. The stint at UCLA finally…
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Stephen Elphick

I would meet Mervyn while wandering around conferences, and we would have a chat about experimental apparatus and sundry topics. Always kind, always interesting, and a master of his craft. A sad loss….
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Reid Cooper

I first met Mervyn at the AGU Chapman Conference on Point Defects in Minerals, held at the Stanford University camp/conference facility near Lake Tahoe, Calif., in early September 1982. (The photo attached is of Mervyn and David Kohlstedt who, as part of a group, were headed-out for an afternoon’s hike.) I was late in my graduate studies, then, working on problems of interfacial-structure and -energy impacts on rheology of partial melts. Mervyn had read a few of my published papers and was very encouraging, despite the ideas being oblique to his perspective on the problem. It was a generosity of intellect and character that has been long and fondly remembered. In the years between then and now there were numerous other meetings and correspondence, both scientific and, after purchasing a Paterson apparatus for Brown University, technical. That same generosity, mixed with the dry humor, characterized all of these interactions. Mervyn’s a giant who is greatly missed.  …
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Greg Hirth

Mervyn had an enormous impact on my career starting from my first few months of graduate school. My fondest memories are from the time he came to David Kohlstedt’s lab in 1991 (while I was a Postdoc) to finalize the set-up of the Paterson apparatus there – working with Mervyn for those two weeks was an incredible experience. His concentration, thoroughness, and attention to detail during a few trouble-shooting tasks was remarkable. A few anecdotes: In my first semester of graduate school, I was giving a presentation at Brown about the role of compaction on stress-strain curves (this was one of my first scientific presentations of any sort).  I showed a few figures on how compaction influences strain weakening (without attribution) and someone in the audience asked where I found the figures.  I told them (naively) – “I found them in a paper by some guy named Mervyn Paterson (uproarious laughter follows).  Not too long after that, I was sitting next to Mervyn during and AGU session on the Brittle-Ductile transition (in those days, a special session at AGU was still a big thing).  I gave a talk in the session – Mervyn asked me a question.  Upon returning…
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Julian Mecklenburgh

After a conference session on Mantle anisotropy in the 2000’s, Mervyn and some colleagues were chatting outside the lecture theatre and Mervyn said “The Mantle has got a lot more heterogeneous over the last 50 years!”.  This perspective from someone who had such a long and successful career was both funny and insightful and has stuck with me ever since….
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Prame Chopra

  ********************************************************************** The story of the piston of Mervyn’s first Japanese car, a Honda **********************************************************************   Yes, I remember the story well. Mervyn bought a rather sporty car – a white Honda Prelude from a local Canberra dealership. He was happy with his new car except that he became convinced over a short time with it that there was an unusual sound coming from the engine. From whatever technical information he was able to locate, he became convinced that it was possible for a piston to be assembled on to its piston rod “back the front” in these Honda cars. In his case he became convinced that one of the pistons in his new car’s 4 cyclinder engine must have been attached “back the front”. And because he was sure that he could here the unusual noise from the motor, he was also sure that this error in manufacture was causing abnormal wear in the engine which would damage it prematurely. Mervyn went to see the Honda dealer in Canberra where he had bought the car and he eventually ended up talking to the chief mechanic in the workshop. The mechanic tried to dismiss Mervyn’s concerns and to assure…
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Santanu Misra

I joined ETH Zurich in June 2007 to work with the two Paterson Presses installed in the Rock Deformation Laboratory. Interested to meet Mervin and eagerly waiting for his next visit. I didn’t have to wait much; Mervyn made a short trip in December, 2007. Thanks to some water-line problems in the lab, which flooded both presses generously! Since then, it was a routine to get in touch with Mervyn frequently while we were upgrading both presses in ETH. He also used to visit us at least once a year. The e-mail communications and all technical conversations always had teaching components and certainly a great opportunity for me to learn from the Master. The learning, however, was not restricted to his instruments and rock mechanics. Wine was one of topics Mervyn loved to talk about. Cricket and Snakes were also two other topics of our common interests. We will miss you Mervyn ! Thanks for all your generous support and encouragement. ***** Photo_1: Mervyn with two of his instruments (Press no. 6 and 9) in ETH Zurich (2009) Photo_2: Mervyn with Ernie, Lugi and Santanu in ETH Zurich (2008) Photo_3: Mervyn with Luigi and Jean-Pierre in ETH Zurich (2007)…
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Hartmut Kern

From Hartmut Kern (Universität Kiel, Germany) I came to know Mervyn Paterson personally when he came to Kiel in the early seventies to visit my lab.  His particular interest was the triaxial pressure apparatus, allowing simultaneous measurements of P- and S-wave velocities and volume change of rock samples in three orthogonal directions at PT conditions. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo from this visit. I was impressed by his personality and I remember the fruitful discussions on the physical properties of geomaterials, motivating me to continue my petrophysical research. Some years later, this personal contact encouraged me to ask Mervyn for comments on the manuscript “Effect of high/low quartz transition on compressional and shear wave velocities in rocks under high pressure” (later published in Phys. Chem. Miner.). The paper has rested for more than a half a year under my desk, because I didn´t dare to submit it. The main reason was that I did not trust in the observed unusual shift of the alpha/beta quartz transition temperature in the polycrystal with increasing pressure compared to the quartz single crystal. Furthermore, I couldn`t believe in the negative Poissions`ratios.   Mervyns answer was: “Publish the paper as it is”. Maybe…
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