Digby McLaren
Digby Johns McLaren ( born December 11, 1919 in Carrickfergus, † December 8, 2004 in Ottawa ) was a Canadian geologist and paleontologist.
McLaren was the son of James McLaren, the land agent of the Duke of Northumberland was, and next to it a keen amateur geologist. He attended the Sedhberg School in England and studied geology at Queens ' College, Cambridge, interrupted by six years of military service in World War II from 1939 at the Royal Artillery in the Middle East and Europe. In 1948, he received his master's degree in geology at Cambridge and went to Canada, where he was a member of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC ). In 1951 he received his doctorate at the University of Michigan.
He specialized in paleontology and stratigraphy, and took part in 1955 in Operation Franklin, the geological exploration of the Arctic islands. 1959 to 1967 he headed the paleontological department of the GSC and in 1967 he became the first director of the newly gegründetem Institute of Sedimentary and Petroleum Geology in Calgary and commenced in this function, the oil and gas exploration in western Canada. In 1973 he became director of the GSC.
In 1981 he was Canadian Assistant Deputy Minister for Science and Technology in the areas of Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR ).
He has also been since 1981 a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, where he dealt primarily with meteorite research. He was one of the early proponents of mass extinction by meteorite impacts, for example, at the turn of Cretaceous / Tertiary.
In 1986 he was one of the initiators of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the threat of global warming. He feared a similar catastrophic effect like meteor strikes in the past. He also dealt with the problem of resource allocation (minerals, energy, water, land) with increasing world population, for which he also organized a Dahlem conference.
He has published over 100 scientific papers in palaeontology, biostratigraphy and regional geology. In the stratigraphy he contributed to the development of the Golden Spike concept of GSSP, especially for the border Silurian / Devonian. 1968 to 1972 he headed the Silurian / Devonian Boundary Working Group of Stratigraphy Commission International Union of Geological Sciences.
In 1982 he was awarded the Leopold- of - book - badge. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1979 ), the National Academy of Sciences ( 1979) and the Royal Society of Canada (1968), which he was president from 1987 to 1990. In 1987 he received the Logan Medal of the Geological Association of Canada and in the same year he became an officer of the Order of Canada. He was the 1981/82 President of the Geological Society of America. He was an honorary member of the Geological Society of London and the European Union of Geoscientists (1983) and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Sciences. McLaren was an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa, Carleton University and the University of Waterloo.
In 1969 he was president of the Paleontological Society, and in 1971 the Alberta Society for Petroleum Geologists, the Canadian Society for Petroleum Geologists later ( an honorary member in 1986, he was ).
He was married to Phyllis Matkin since 1942 and had three children.
2004 Digby McLaren Medal of the International Commission of Stratigraphy was donated.
Writings
- Editor Brian Skinner: Resources and World Development, Wiley, 1987 ( Dahlem Workshop)
- Published by Constance Mungall: Planet under Stress: The Challenge of Global Change, Royal Society of Canada in 1991