Professor D. Ian Gough: 20 June, 1922 - 21 March, 2011

(Photo courtesy of Sven Hjelt. Taken in Oulu in 1983 at the Baltic Shield Symposium.)

Communication from Ian's grandchildren: 22 March 2011

Dear all,

We are writing to you because you are all in the contacts list for our Grandfather's email.

We are so sorry to inform you that our Grandfather, Ian Gough, passed away on Monday, March 21, 2011.

He was admitted to the Grey Nuns hospital here in Edmonton on Saturday evening. He was never alone and was surrounded by family the whole time. Both he and the family had spiritual support from the hospital and from our parish priests. He was in peace at the end, and we believe that he did not suffer.

We will be in further contact once the details for the funeral service have been arranged.

Please direct any further correspondence to our Mother, Catherine Descheneau, at cvd@ualberta.ca as we will no longer be using this email address. She can also forward any messages to our Grandmother, Wendy, and the rest of the family.

Love from

Andrea, David and Christina.

Funeral Service Obituary

Scientific Obituary

Ian Gough was born on 20 June 1922 at Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He received a B.Sc and M.Sc. from Rhodes University (in 1943 and 1947, respectively), and a Ph.D. from the University of Witwatersrand in 1953. From 1947 to 1958 he worked as a researcher at the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, before moving to academe where he spent the rest of his career. In the years 1958-63 he was at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (in what is now Harare, Zimbabwe), followed by a short period (1964-66) at the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies in Dallas, Texas. Thereafter, he moved to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada where he remained on the faculty until his retirement in 1988.

Ian had a rich and productive research career in his chosen field of geophysics. He published more than 100 papers in first-class international scientific journals, and made seminal contributions to a very wide range of topics in the earth sciences. He belonged to a generation of scientists who approached scientific work very much from first principles. Given a need to bring observations to bear on a particular problem, he set about designing, constructing, and operating the necessary apparatus. I well remember him preparing the unique Gough-Reitzel magnetometers for an upcoming field season—rows of vertical metal tubes standing to attention like a squadron of soldiers on parade. And each one containing a sensitive magnet system and an ingenious home-made camera. He was simultaneously commanding officer, quartermaster, and chief mechanic. One thinks of Newton polishing mirrors for his own telescope, or of Faraday co-opting a giant link from an anchor chain to construct his electromagnet. Deployed as arrays across wide stretches of North America, South Africa, and Australia, Ian's magnetometers revealed hitherto unknown structures in the earth's crust, such as an ancient plate-tectonic boundary stretching more than 1000 km through the Canadian Shield and down into Wyoming.

Another example of this hands-on way of doing science was the Gough spinner magnetometer, built in the days when nothing was available off-the-shelf, but at a time when the ability to measure the weak "fossil" magnetism in rock samples was crucial to establishing the reality of the way in which the Earth's magnetic poles, and the continents themselves, have drifted about over huge distances; the sort of data which would ultimately underpin the modern theory of plate tectonics. These examples are but two from a long list that includes the accurate determination of the amount of thermal energy flowing out of the Earth, the seismic activity induced by the filling of large reservoirs, and the speculation that the supercontinent Gondwanaland was cracked apart by the weight of an ice cap hundreds of millions of years ago. And this is by no means an exhaustive list.

Dedicated as he was to his own research, Ian was also committed to playing a leadership role in the scientific community at large. He served as President of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, President of the Canadian Geophysical Union, and as Director of the Institute of Earth and Planetary Physics (now the Institute for Geophysical Research) at the University of Alberta. He was also instrumental in setting up Canada's highly-acclaimed national geosciences program Lithoprobe.

Ian Gough's contributions to geoscience were recognized nationally and internationally. He was awarded the Canadian Geophysical Union's J. Tuzo Wilson Medal (1983), the Royal Astronomical Society's Chapman Medal (1988), and the South African Geophysical Association's Rudolf Krahmann Medal (1989). He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Geophysical Union, and the Geological Association of Canada.

During his last field work in South Africa Ian discovered a taste for writing poetry and after his retirement turned to that. He remarked more than once that doing this was more difficult than geophysical research! Nevertheless, in 2006 he published Signing the Light, a book of poetry that reveals a sensitive and caring nature.

Ian was always a thoughful and courteous colleague, mentor, and friend. He inspired and unfailingly supported generations of students, post-doctoral fellows, and younger faculty members. His passing is a great loss to us all, but his example of a life well lived, of commitment and service, is a legacy of which we are all the beneficiaries.

Ted Evans
Edmonton, March 2011

Comments/reminiscences from Ian's colleagues and friends

Sven-Erik Hjelt

Again one sad news about a key person of the Induction Community. I had quite some contcts with Ian during my active years within IAGA. Always friendly, seeking for good compromises and ready to help "us newcomers to the bussiness".

One special memory, which we actually share, comes from the Baltic Shield Symposium in 1983 here in Oulu. Managed even to find a photo gallery from that occasion. I will add a PowerPoint summary from the paper presentations as well as two or three extra jpg's you might wish to add to the History book of Induction. Some of the Symposium attendants (do not recall exactly who, but Ian and Rosemary at least) where invited to our home for a small dinner. After the following coffee Ian insisted on having the experience of Finnish sauna. So - late it was, close to midnight - we turned the electrical sauna on and soon myself and Ian (I recall nobody else had the courage) found ourselves sweating properly. Ian knew from somewhere, that according to tradition you should refresh yourselves by rolling around in the snow. I recall that I somehow managed to make the excuse of having too little snow in our garden for the purpose and so avoided the situation, which might had been dangerous late in the night and after a rather heavy meal.

As far as I recall Ian once mentioned, that the world famous artist Vincent van Gough was a distant relative of his. This might explain his keen interest in beatiful things of life - a true Reneaisaance scientist as you say. We certainy will miss him.

Alan Jones

Rosemary Hutton borrowed 20 of Ian's Gough-Reitzel magnetometers in 1973 and undertook two deployments, one in northern Scotland and one in southern Scotland. I arrived at the University of Edinburgh in September, 1973, and immediately went to service the stations in northern Scotland. A month later we retrieved them and installed them in southern Scotland. In March-May, 1974 I went to Edmonton to scan the films using the automatic digitizing system developed by Remi Alabi. It didn't work so well on our data, so I had to hand-digitize events picked from the photographic films from the southern Scotland array. Ian was a very gracious host during my stay there.

My first Post-Doctoral Fellowship was working in Munster with the 32 Kueppers-Post magnetometers installed in Scandinavia for the International Magnetospheric Study. These magnetometers were based on the Gough-Reitzel ones.

I subsequently saw Ian frequently at EM Workshops, IAGA and IUGG meetings. I well remember the Ile-Ife one (1984) when we all had an "exciting" time. I was also an attendee at the Baltic Shield Symposium in 1983 referred to by Sven Hjelt above, and I do remember the very late sauna!

After moving to Canada in 1982 I started to have much more to do with Ian, especially as Lithoprobe was proposed and launched. Ian was the champion of non-seismic geophysics, particularly EM, and it is because of his efforts that the EM community in Canada benefitted through strong funding for the whole of Lithoprobe.

Ian's last scientific paper is one that the two of us wrote together that summarized all of the then MT data for southern British Columbia, including his own and those collected by Lithoprobe and under other auspices:
Jones, A.G. and Gough, D.I., 1995. Electromagnetic images of crustal structures in southern and central Canadian Cordillera. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 32, 1541-1563. [PDF]

Yet another of our Working Group founding fathers is now gone. Ian was Chair of a WG from 1971-1975, during which time the first two EM Workshops were held. Ian was hugely involved in promoting natural-source EM, both within IAGA (Ian was President of IAGA from 1983-1987) and within IUGG.

There will be an official obituary written about Ian's life, but as a quick synopsis from what I am aware of for those of you who are not as familiar with his work:

Ian's work with magnetometer arrays in the late-1960s and 1970s, using the famous Gough-Reitzel design, mapped huge areas of North America (NACP, EMSLAB, IMS array), Southern Africa (Cape Conductive Anomaly), Australia, and Scotland (my very first fieldwork for my PhD was using his magnetometers in the Scottish arrays in 1973-74). Many of us have followed up on Ian's pioneering work. In the mid-1980s, after his magnetometers were destroyed by fire on their return from EMSLAB, he turned to MT and conducted studies in British Columbia, amongst other places. Ironically, I was chatting with him in 1981 during the IAGA meeting in Edinburgh at a social function in Rosemary Hutton's house, and I asked him why he didn't move into MT - his reply to me was that he was too old to learn anything new (he was 59 at the time). After his magnetometers were destroyed in 1985, he did then move into MT, and did it very well! A lesson for us all to learn - you are never too old to do something new.

During the early-1980s he was one of the driving forces behind what became the highly-successful Lithoprobe programme, and his strong stance on behalf of EM benefitted all of us EM geophysicists based in Canada, especially me.

Perhaps not as well known is that Ian invented the hammer seismogram and the spinner magnetometer whilst in South Africa in his early years, and during his later years worked extensively on stress. His 1986 Nature paper (see below) combined his interests in conductivity and stress with the proposal that the continental lower crustal conductor was a consequence of connected saline fluids in a ductile regime.

Even less well known amongst us is that on retirement he turned to writing poetry. He once commented to me that getting his science papers published was easy compared to getting his poetry published.

He was a true polymath and Renaissance scientist, and the world is poorer with his passing. He certainly signed the light, as his 2010 poetry book was named.

Gough, D.I., 1986. Seismic reflectors, conductivity, water and stress in the continental crust. Nature, 323, 143 - 144 (11 September 1986); doi:10.1038/323143a0 [PDF]
Abstract: The uppermost 10-15 km of the Earth's continental crust differs in several geophysical properties from the lower crust. The upper crust is electrically resistive, seismically transparent, contains nearly all intracontinental earthquake hypocentres and responds to stress elastically, with brittle fracture. The lower crust is electrically conductive, contains many seismic reflectors, is aseismic and shows ductile response to stress. I show here that the characteristics of both regions can be explained if the entire crust contains saline water, in separated cavities in the compressively stressed rocks of the upper crust, but in the lower crust forming an interconnected film on the crystal surfaces. The model may apply principally to technically active parts of the continental crust; beneath shields, the lower crust may be dry.

Ted Lilley

I first met Ian Gough in 1965, when visiting the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies in Dallas (which later became the University of Texas at Dallas). He was then in a research position, collaborating with John Reitzel in developing what became known as the Gough-Reitzel magnetometer.

Some years later (in 1970-71) he came to the Australian National University in Canberra on sabbatical leave from the University of Alberta, bringing his array of magnetometers which were used here in two pioneering studies of induction in the Australian continent. We covered long distances across parts of remote Australia by light plane, which made for memorable field trips. With his encouragement, and led by Michael W. McElhinny, we copied his instruments and made an array of our own. This array was used in a number of studies in Australia, and also in India at the invitation there of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism and the National Geophysical Research Institute. Professor B.P. Singh of IIG, the dynamic leader of this Indian array work, sadly also passed away recently.

In connection with these array studies I visited Edmonton several times. Treated to the delightful hospitality of the Gough household I remember meeting Catherine and Stephen as intellectually very active students. Ian was a rightly proud father, if at times bemused (it seemed to me, perhaps it was just his manner) by his now-Canadian children and their modern friends.

The passing of such a leader is a time for an appreciation of the whole life, and requires recognition of aspects in addition to scientific. Thus Ian’s devotion to his family, and their devotion to him, has always been clear for all to see. Our thoughts and greatest sympathies at present are for his bereaved wife Wendy.

Also in reviewing Ian’s very great service to others his deep religious faith should be acknowledged, and its code of “living for others”. To me Ian’s life speaks strongly of the Latin quotation Quantum potes, tantum aude “the amount which is possible, that much be bold to do”. Indeed at times with his determination he pushed beyond the limits of what at first might have seemed possible.

At the end of his contribution to the Gough family e-letter of Christmas 2010, Ian quoted a poem he had written in 1991. I quote it here, as one of his last acts of self-expression to a world-wide set of friends.

Song

When we begin to remember
we remember more than we knew –
the swirl of the sea into rock-pools,
the grit of wet sand in a shoe –
and ever the tides
the moon-beckoned tide
of renewal, rejoicing and rue.

When we begin to discover
we find more than we thought to be there –
the wit and the will in a lover,
the pause at the turn of the stair –
and sometimes the beat
heart-stopping, the beat
as of wings in an alien air,
in a known and yet alien air.

Ian Gough, 17-18 December 1991

Eigil Friis-Christensen

Dear IAGA scientists and friends

It was so sad, returning from a two week travel, to learn that yet another of the great scientists, who formed our Association is no longer among us.

Ian Gough, former President of IAGA, who passed away on March 21, 2011 will be remembered for great contribution to IAGA science and in particular for his pioneering work on the concept of two-dimensional ground-based magnetometer arrays that has brought so much added knowledge regarding the nature of the electric currents in the ionosphere and their induced effect.

My thoughts are with his family

Eigil Friis-Christensen
President of IAGA

Baldev Arora

We the Indian Electromagnetic Induction Community deeply mourn the passing away of Dr Ian Gough, the pioneer founder member of Electromagnetic Geophysics. The magnetometer array studies initiated by him in 1970s were landmark in establishing the electromagnetic geophysics as a power tool to map the first order electrical structures of lithosphere. Soon the activities surged all over the globe and international partnership helped introduction of array studies on the Indian geophysical scene. This helped us in transforming the face of geomagnetism from a diagnostic tool of solar-terrestrial relationship to potential probe for imaging the earth’s interior and dynamics. In all these advancements, we were constantly encouraged and motivated by his advice and guidance. Personally, I was beneficiary of his guidance when we were engaged in the fabrication of Gough-Reitzel magnetometer. Only when I met him I realised that the design and height of the first generation Gough-Reitzel magnetometers not only matched his stature as a researchers but also his towering personality. His positive comments of Indian work in his extensive review article in ‘Reviews of Geophysics’ motivated us to strive for new niches. During March 21-25, 2011, the Indian Earth Science Community along with international experts met to draw a road map for Super Deep Borehole Projects at Koyna, a distinctive site known for reservoir induced seismicity, the pioneer work of Dr Ian Gough on the role of water in inducting changes in lithosphere was quoted specifically. This gives me a feeling that though Ian may not be physically with us but his spirit and teachings will motivate and guide us, and coming generations to come. We pray to God that his soul rests in peace.

Baldev Arora
(on behalf of Indian Electromagnetic Induction Community)
Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology,
Dehradun 248 001, India.

John Weaver

It is indeed a sad time for the whole EM Induction community as yet another of the pioneers in our field leaves us. Apart from holding Ian in the greatest respect through getting to know him at the many EM Induction Workshops and other international conferences we attended together, I also had the pleasure of serving with him on two national committees in Canada. His sound judgement, scientific insight and courteous manner were as highly valued on those committees as they were in our own international scientific community. Like Alan Jones I remember well the 7th Workshop in Nigeria. In particular I recall Ian’s remark when we arrived in Lagos and boarded a bus for the long drive to Ile Ife. While some of us were surveying with some trepidation the seemingly chaotic scene around us – streets teeming with people, reckless (but not wreckless!) traffic, unfamiliar sights, strange sounds and different smoky smells – Ian just smiled contentedly and, true to his roots, aired his own feelings: “It’s good to be back in Africa”. May he rest in peace; he was a fine scientist and a perfect gentleman.

Al Duba

Ian Gough was Chairman of the Working Group when I attended Workshop 2 in 1974 at Carlton University, Ottawa, Canada. Having received my PhD in 1971 and, being fresh from two post docs, I was a bit nervous at presenting a talk at my first international meeting. The talk dealt with mantle temperatures beneath Iceland, based on Jack Hermance’s fieldwork there and my data on the electrical conductivity of olivine, recently acquired, in collaboration with Ian Nicholls, during my second post-doc at ANU, Canberra. With this research, Ian and I demonstrated that all previous electrical conductivity measurements on olivine were suspect — including my thesis work — because of lack of control of oxygen fugacity during conductivity measurement at high temperatures.

At the end of my presentation in Ottawa, in order to illustrate the problem of the many ambiguities in the interpretation of field data based on laboratory measurements and the newly-minted plate-tectonic concepts that were revolutionizing Earth science at the time, I played a tape-recorded song performed by a makeshift singing group that Alan Major, Bob Liebermann, and I organized at ANU to celebrate my departing Australia for my first real job, in California. I had written the lyrics below after two of Ted Lilley’s students, Hans Tammemagi and David Bennett, had each presented departmental seminars on their independent thesis work on electromagnetic techniques used to investigate the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA). Needless to say, Hans and David didn’t quite coincide in their findings with respect to depth and extent of the anomaly; also their interpretations of the nature of the source varied somewhat. Furthermore, the suggestions and comments from the seminar attendees were provoking and sometimes hilarious.

At ANU in the early 70’s when the Department of Geophysics was splitting from domination by the Research School of Physics, busily working on the Moon rocks, and trying to adjust to Plate Tectonics, there was a lot of discussion at seminars and many wild conjectures flew around the room during the discussion sessions following these seminars. During these discussions many folks had a say and I captured enough of their thoughts in my notes to make for some mighty fine lyrics for a song. At one point during the Q&A period, one of the audience — maybe McElhinney — suggested getting some of Ian Gough’s magnetometers on the problem — and maybe even Ian himself — to participate in the investigation of the SAMA. Having read extensively on field investigations in order to find uses for my laboratory measurements, the name electrified my imagination — that’s whose expertise was needed to sort it out, I thought.

So, when I went to Workshop 2 in Ottawa, I was anxious to meet this fabled fellow who could perform magic with the magnetometer. I thought he would like to know about the theories surrounding the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly and what I thought he could add to the interpretative morass, thus I shortened my talk in order to play the following recording:

The South Australian Magnetic Anomaly (with apologies to “Oh! Susanna” by Stephen Foster) A. Duba, 1971

Oh!Ted Lilley, O can you figure me?
I am the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly.

Tammemaggi says I’m hot, BUT then I may be cold,
He don’t know just what he’s got, maybe a vein of gold!
Hans Tammemaggi, why can’t you figure me?
I am the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly!

They tell me that Ray Crawford thinks I am a triple join,
I tell you, sir, that theory stinks, it hasn’t any coin!
Oh! Ray Crawford, O don’t you fracture me,
I am the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly.

I understand the record shows, I am out of phase,
As far as Ross Taylor knows, I’m in another place.
Oh! Ross Taylor, O don’t you misplace me,
I’m not the Bloody Victorian Magnetic Anomaly!

Davy Bennett pulls me up, Tammemagi shoves me down,
Who knows where Ian Gough will stop, I think I’m leavin’ town.
Oh! Ted Lilley, before you butchered me,
I was the South Australian Magnetic Anomaly!

Nicholls thinks I’m a partial melt, Duba I’m oxidized,
Others say a sediment belt, or perhaps a plate capsized.
Oh! You dirty bastards, O don’t you pick on me,
I am the poor, defenseless South Australian Anomaly!

(NOTE: In the Australian vernacular, the word “bastard” is a term of endearment, except when applied to an Englishman….)

During teatime later at Workshop 2, I met Ian who was absolutely charming, commenting positively on my talk, and suggesting that I consider getting active in the community — his encouragement kept me coming to the Workshops until my retirement dried up travel funds. Members of the Working Group on Electromagnetic Induction owe Ian Gough a debt of gratitude for helping the late Rosemary Hutton and her colleagues get a highly-productive cultural and scientific exchange of ideas and experience off to a warmly human beginning with his erudite, outgoing personality.

Thank you, Ian!! We’ll miss you…

Al Duba, Huntington, WV, 2 April 2011.