SCCS members Jim Barrick and Paul Brenckle are preparing a memorial volume in honour of the late Richard Lane. In the statement below, Jim and Paul provide a brief eulogy for Rich Lane along with instructions for contributing to a memorial volume for Rich.

H. Richard Lane Memorial Volume

When Rich Lane passed away on October 16, 2015, the geological community lost a valuable colleague who excelled in research as well as in the promotion of scientific progress in the geosciences.  He earned his B.S. from the University of Illinois and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geology from the University of Iowa.  Rich worked at Amoco Production Company for 28 years, first as a research paleontologist and head of the Paleozoic paleontological research group in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and later in Houston, Texas, as the Worldwide Manager of Paleontology and Director of Biostratigraphic Support and Development for Amoco.  During this time, he published numerous articles on Carboniferous conodonts and biostratigraphy, and played a leading role in the establishment of the Mid-Carboniferous boundary. 

For the past 18 years, Rich served as program director for the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He helped lead the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Program, the Genealogy of Life Program, and the Coastal SEES Program.  He was instrumental in supporting the National Center for Earth Dynamics (NCED), the Paleobiology Database, Macrostrat, NEOTOMA, Morphobank, the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance (IEDA), iDigBio, the University of Texas CT-Scanning Facility (UTCT), the Tree of Life, Chronos, Earthtime, the System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR), and the STEPPE office.  Rich was committed to building ties between American and Chinese paleontologists through collaborations of NSF-USA and NSF-China.

To honor his lifetime of achievement, we plan to publish a special volume of papers dedicated to him. We would especially like to receive manuscripts on Devonian and Carboniferous stratigraphy and conodonts, and in view of Rich's broad range of interests, we also welcome manuscripts on a wide spectrum of topics on geology and paleontology.  If you wish to submit a manuscript for this volume, please send a title and a few sentences describing the proposed content of the submission by March 1.  This will allow us to see the range of topics that will be included and give us time to compile a list of potential reviewers.  

We anticipate that the volume will be published as a single or double issue in the journal Stratigraphy, edited by Jim Barrick and Paul Brenckle, and ask that the manuscripts be prepared in the format for that journal (http://www.micropress.org/stratigraphy/suggestions.html).  The deadline for submission of completed manuscripts will be August 1, 2016.  Please direct correspondence to Jim Barrick (jim.barrick@ttu.edu).

 

Jim Barrick