Dr. F.E.M. (Ted) Lilley: 08 February, 1940 - 04 July, 2022

Ted Lilley


Obituary


This obituary for Ted is a contribution to Life Celebrations, a publication of the ANU Emeritus Faculty (https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/250556).

Ted Lilley's life-long career was in the field of geomagnetism - the study of the Earth's magnetic field. For Ted, its subtle changes from moment to moment and from place to place were a source of endless fascination that sustained his entire research career because they enabled his wonder, as he himself said, at being able to measure geophysical processes deep within the Earth.

Ted was born in Hobart, Tasmania on the 8th of February 1940. He received his formative education at Hobart's celebrated Hutchins School where his interest in science was well formed by the time he graduated. He was an excellent student, and he was Dux of the Year in his final two years. Upon completing secondary studies Ted was awarded a cadetship in geophysics by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission which supported his studies in science at the University of Sydney (1957-1960). After graduating BSc (Hons) in geophysics, Ted took a position in the aeromagnetic surveying group of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology & Geophysics (BMR, now Geoscience Australia) which was then pioneering airborne magnetic field measurements in Australia, using a World War II-era DC3 aircraft and old, cumbersome submarine-detection magnetometers. Ted helped to modernise the program by field testing the use of newer and lighter proton-precession magnetometers in a smaller, more-manoeuvrable Cessna aircraft.

In the early 1960s Ted began an MSc and PhD program at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. There he initially continued working in aero-magnetism, investigating the practical problem of how flight direction affected the characterisation of magnetic anomalies on the ground. In his later doctoral research, he turned his attention to the mathematically challenging issue of how earthquake waves travelling through the core of the Earth would be affected by the intense and highly variable magnetic fields that exist there.

Subsequent postdoctoral research with the renowned geophysicist Sir Edward Bullard at the University of Cambridge further fuelled Ted's interest in core studies. At Cambridge, his investigation of models of fluid flow in the Earth's Outer Core were sufficiently computationally demanding as to require the use of the recently commissioned IBM 360/model 91 computer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the USA, which at that time was the most powerful computer in operation.

Ted and his wife Penny returned to Australia in 1968 with Ted taking up an academic position in the Department of Geophysics and Geochemistry in the ANU's Research School of Physical Sciences. Established by John Conrad Jaeger in 1952, the Department became the Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES) in 1973 with Anton Hales its first Director. Interestingly, some of the buildings used to house the new Research School included weatherboard-style buildings dating from the old Canberra Community Hospital which was itself founded in 1914. The hospital's historic buildings found good use as office space for the growing Research School, and they still stand today as an historic monument that sees good use. Indeed, for the latter part of Ted's tenure at RSES, he and his students occupied what was once a maternity ward in the old hospital.

Ted and Penny settled in the Canberra suburb of Aranda where they raised their family and embedded themselves deeply in the local community. Ted's work days in fine weather usually involved strenuous morning and afternoon walks through the Black Mountain Reserve. Often he would meet fellow geophysics colleague at RSES, Mervyn Paterson, and the two of them would share the morning walk observing all the while the seasonal changes in the Reserve's flora and fauna. On such days the two colleagues would often share their discoveries of orchids found or nests reconstructed with other colleagues at the daily morning tea gatherings in the RSES Seminar Room.

At ANU, Ted's research took a major new direction with the study of the electrical structure of the Australian continent his new focus. Initially Ted and his first students used instruments they had built themselves, with mixed results. However, a sabbatical at ANU by Professor Ian Gough from the University of Alberta gave access to a pool of 25 instruments, the design of which he later permitted RSES to copy. These magnetometers could be buried at field sites and left to record for weeks or months at a time. Subsequent painstaking analysis of the subtle differences in the magnetic field as it changed over time from site to site, permitted estimates of the electrical conductivity of the deep Earth.

These magnetometers, excellent as they turned out to be, were however not without their challenges. Each was housed in an aluminium tube standing more than 1.5 metres tall. They were cumbersome to transport in numbers, and they were very hard to dig vertically into the ground. Visiting colleagues, students, pilots, Ted's children: Matthew, Jo and Jim, and station managers - particularly those with tractor-mounted augurs - were key collaborators in this fieldwork. After a survey, each recovered instrument then had weeks' or months' worth of photographic film that needed to be developed, measured and transcribed into useful numbers for analysis. Ted's long-term Research Assistant Merren Sloane managed this process meticulously.

Ted and his early students - Hans Tammemagi, Dave Bennett and Dennis Woods - deployed arrays of these instruments in central and southern Australia. They collected magnetic-field data over an enormous area across the south of the Northern Territory and western Queensland, much of South Australia, western and southern New South Wales, all of Victoria, and also in northern Tasmania. These studies found large, deep electrical conductivity anomalies under the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, the Eromanga Basin in southwest Queensland and the Otway Ranges of southern Victoria. They also found evidence of the "coast effect" in which magnetic field changes are affected by the strong contrast in electrical conductivity between the continent and the salty ocean.

Because of the remoteness of these surveys, the equipment was usually deployed by aircraft. Dennis Woods recounts stories of pilots Peter Smith and Jan Styles flying Ted, his students, and their equipment to remote landing strips on cattle stations and clay pans in the middle of the Simpson Desert, sometimes having to make a first pass by bouncing the wheels on the surface to see if it was hard enough to land on. The difficulty of these aeronautical feats was later recognised when Jan won an award for her bush piloting skills. Years later, in 2022, when Dennis tracked Jan down, she recalled "what a kind, thoughtful gentleman Ted was", and she still recalled the large "FEM Lilley" that he always used to mark all his baggage.

One of Jan's photos shows Ted and Dennis installing a magnetometer at a desert site, Ted in a white lab coat over shorts and a singlet, Dennis in shorts, and both wearing bucket hats and thongs. In these days of high-vis clothing and steel toe-capped safety boots - it's amazing to reflect on what sufficed for personal protective equipment back then!

In the early 1980s, Ted, B.P. Singh, Baldev Arora and other Indian collaborators used the ANU magnetometers to investigate electrical conductivity anomalies in India. This fieldwork included all the logistical challenges implicit in extensive field campaigns in India. Significantly, the research identified a major, deep conductor running from the Himalayan foothills southwest towards Delhi, and another running between the southern coast of India and Sri Lanka. Ted always remembered fondly the wonderful hospitality he enjoyed in India, and the sustaining chai breaks on trips through the mountains.

The 1980s also brought new students - Ian Ferguson, Nathan Bindoff, Richard Kellett and Graham Heinson. With them, and in collaboration with Jean Filloux, Phil Mulhearn, and Tony White, Ted's research began to focus more offshore. Seafloor instruments were deployed off the New South Wales coast using the HMAS Cook, the RV Franklin, and a lobster boat working out of Ulladulla. Nathan recalls he, Ian and Ted diligently trying to test one of the magnetometers near a boat ramp in Ulladulla to make sure it was working correctly before deploying it while wearing little more than their underwear so that their clothes didn't get too wet. Once operational, these seafloor instruments provided the opportunity to study the electrical conductivity of oceanic crust, the electrical and pressure signatures of ocean tides and currents, and the "coast effect" as seen from the ocean side. The new data they provided permitted the first computer models of the electrical structure of the Tasman Sea to be developed using the "thin-sheet" modelling method developed by John Weaver's group at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

Into the 1990s, with his final students Robert Corkery, Liejun Wang and Adrian Hitchman, Ted's research began to bring together aspects of his work over the previous two decades. Rob and Liejun worked with Ted to amalgamate data from all the Australian array studies, including that collected by Francois Chamalaun, Charlie Barton, Tony White and Peter Milligan, to build the first conductivity model of the entire continent. With Adrian, Ted's research went "full circle" as they investigated how this newly understood electrical structure might affect aeromagnetic survey data.

Through the 2000s, Ted worked with John Weaver on the inventive use of Mohr circles in the analysis of magnetotelluric data, and authored book chapters, review papers, and, increasingly, also articles about boats and yachting - which for him was another lifelong passion.

Ted often remarked that he considered himself very fortunate in the colleagues with whom he shared the pleasures and satisfaction of making geophysical studies in Australia, once observing that "science is best when it is done with one's friends" and indeed many of these colleagues returned the compliment by sharing their admiration of Ted at his funeral in 2022. Two such accounts here say as much about Ted Lilley, the man, as they do about how science used to be conducted and how Australia itself has also changed.

Dave Bennett:
"Ted and I were returning from fieldwork on a flight from Adelaide to Sydney, years ago. Before we took off he was regaling me with his memories of airborne magnetic surveys when he was in the Bureau of Mineral Resources, and how they had a nerveless pilot, called Darkie Dangerfield, who would land the old DC3 on salt pans and the like, out in the bush; when the pre-flight announcement came on...'ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Dangerfield speaking........' Ted pressed the attention button and asked the steward whether the captain was indeed Darkie Dangerfield. After being assured that he was, Ted said ‘please tell him that Ted Lilley is in the plane'. Back came the message - Captain Dangerfield invites you to join him in the cockpit - where they reminisced happily as we flew to Sydney".

Dennis Woods:
"We didn't always camp out. Some cattle station owners and managers insisted that we stay with them at the station house. It didn't take too much of this hospitality to convince Ted that it was better than camping out every night. So we loaded up on good wine as hospitality gifts, and Ted organized toys and children's books to give to the station kids who always seemed to be around. I heard later from these station folk, when carrying out my own follow-up study, that they looked forward to these visits from "Professor Ted" - even more than we looked forward to them ourselves".

In addition to his more than 50 years of research, Ted also taught undergraduate geophysics to students in the ANU's Department of Geology for 25 years. His lectures and practical classes were very popular with students as were his student excursions to such venues in Canberra as the BMR/AGSO/GA Magnetic Observatory, the ANU Seismic Vault at Mt Stromlo, and the Black Mountain Tower.

Ted Lilley retired at the end of 2003, but he continued in the Research School of Earth Sciences as a Visiting Fellow, and in 2019 he was appointed an Honorary Associate Professor. During Ted's long career at ANU, he supervised 10 PhD graduates and 3 Honours graduates, many of whom went on to become influential researchers in geophysics in their own right. His prolific research led to the publication of 155 scientific papers. He was a foundation member of the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG) and its ACT branch. He served as ACT President in 1980/81 and Vice-President in 1981/82. Between 1981 and 1983 he was Editor of the Bulletin of the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists and, in 2004, his lasting contributions to Australian geophysics were recognised with the award of ASEG Honorary Life Membership.

Ted's colleagues have described him as famously patient, utterly kind, generous and gentlemanly, a mentor and champion, a supreme communicator, always generous with wise counsel, encouragement and carefully considered comment, a scientist to emulate and a strong influence, not only on careers, but on lives.

Ted is survived by Penny, children Matthew, Jo and Jim, their spouses Elizabeth, Josh and Jane, and grandchildren Lucinda, Francis, Charles, Sophia, Gabriel, Molly, Freya and Eliza. He will also be ever present in the lives of his former students and colleagues around the world.

Frederick Edward Mulhearin (Ted) Lilley was truly the epitome of "a gentleman and a scholar" and he was an example to all. He is greatly missed.

Adrian Hitchman


ANU's web page for Ted: here


Ted's Eulogy by Adrian Hitchman


Ted was a very strong supporter of our EM Induction Workshops. You can see him in the photos from various workshops:


Photos from the Ted Lilley Symposium, ASEG, August 2004

Ted's Legacy

Besides all of Ted's published papers (you can view them on ANU's web site here), Ted's legacy is the students he trained. They are listed here in chronological order. Very impressive how well Ted's students have done!

Ted's students
Name Dates Current occupation
Doctoral
Hans Tammemagi 1969-1972 Writer/Photographer, Pender Island, Canada
Dave Bennett 1969-1973 Entrpeneur, NZ
Graham Boyd 1973-1975 Geosolutions Pty Ltd, South Australia
Dennis Woods 1976-1979 President, Chief Geophysicist, Discovery International Geophysics Inc, Canada
Steve Constable 1980-1983 Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
Ian Ferguson 1983-1988 Professor, University of Manitoba, Canada
Nathan Bindoff 1984-1988 Professor of Physical Oceanography, IMAS, University of Tasmania, Australia
Richard Kellett 1986-1989 Senior Geoscientist, GNS Science, NZ
Graham Heinson 1987-1990 Professor, The University of Adelaide, Australia
Liejun Wang 1995-1998 Senior Geophysicist, Geomagnetism Section, Geoscience Australia
Adrian Hitchman 1996-1999 Geophysicist, Onshore Seismic and Magnetotellurics Section, Geoscience Australia
Honours
Ian Ferguson 1981 Professor, University of Manitoba, Canada
Robert Corkery 1993
Tony Meixner 1995 Small business owner / bike mechanic, Canberra (former Geophysicist, Geoscience Australia)
Vacation scholar
Ron Hackney 1993 Director, Australian and New Zealand IODP Consortium, ANU
Karen Weitemeyer 2003 Marine Geophysicist, Ocean Floor Geophysics Inc,
Visiting researcher, School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, UK

Email from Adrian Hitchman: 06 July 2022

Dear friends

Penny Lilley telephoned yesterday to pass on the sad news that Ted passed away on Monday, 4 July. She asked that I share this with you all.

Penny said that Ted was absolutely thrilled to hear from so many over recent weeks and that your emails were a wonderful opportunity to reflect on his full life and treasured friendships. Both Ted and Penny were delighted to catch up on your news and memories of happy times together.

Ted's funeral will take place at 11 am on Wednesday 13 July at Holy Covenant Anglican Church, 89 Dexter Street, Cook ACT 2614. Friends are welcome. The funeral will also be viewable online via Zoom. Further information will be published in a funeral notice in the Canberra Times on Saturday.

Should you wish to be in touch with Penny, and Matthew, Jo, Jim and their families, please do so using penelopelilley@gmail.com or via their home address 19 Araba Street, Aranda ACT 2614.

Penny has invited me to give some reflections on Ted's professional life at his funeral. It is a privilege to do that on your behalf. If there are any stories or messages you would like to contribute to the reflection, please email them to me by COB Monday.

Also, I would like in the next month or so to prepare an obituary for Ted for publication in the ASEG Preview journal and the IAGA newsletter/annual report. I would also welcome your contributions to this should you wish to do so.

Vale Ted.

Adrian


Comments/reminiscences from Ted's former students, colleagues and friends

Please send photos and reminiscences to the MTNet Webmaster for inclusion on this page

Hans Tammemagi

Dear Penny,
I am truly saddened by Ted's passing. Please accept my deepest condolences.

Although 50 years have passed since we last met in person, as his first Ph.D. student (along with Dave Bennett) I remember Ted well. He was blessed with an innate curiosity and a superb mathematical ability. He was also kind and patient, characteristics that served him well in dealing with us rambunctious students.

Attached is a photo of him in the middle of the outback changing batteries on a magnetometer at Hazelton Station. He (stood to the left) and Drs. Ian Gough (seated left) and Mike McElhaney (seated right) arrived by the plane in the background in September 1970. (I lived for three incredible months in the outback and arrived on site with the white van.)

I remember Ted with enormous fondness. It is sad indeed when a man of his stature must leave us.

Best regards ... Hans
Ted Lille, Ian Gough, Mike McElhanyy

Dennis Woods

Ted Lilley - My Mentor

I was so lucky to find myself in Australia meeting Ted Lilley for the first time at ANU in January 1976, where I was about start a PhD program under his direction. I wasn't really looking to do a PhD - it just sort of happened. Mainly because another of my mentors, Bob Uffen, who I happened to have as a geophysics prof at Queen's, knew that I was vaguely interested in carrying on as a graduate student (mainly to delay having to enter the workforce), and he just happened to hear from Ted who was his former student at Western (via the pre-email letter method), that Ted was looking for a student to help him carry out a large research project in central Australia. Not knowing anything about anything, but just liking the sound of a "large project in central Australia", and especially as it came with pay - a scholarship - my wife Linda and I embarked on a week's long, island hopping trip across the Pacific to Canberra.

Dennis's very interesting story continues here

Baldev Arora, on behalf of Indian Earth Science Community

Dear Penny, Family, Students, Collaborators and Well Wishers,

Demise of a life partner, father, mentor, cherished professional and above all a kind human is great loss to one and all. Demise of Ted Lilley has left behind a large vacuum, which has saddened one and all who came in contact with him in different walks of life. My heartfelt condolences to the family and all followers. It was kind of Adrian Hitchman, who about a few weeks back (June 7, 2022) shared news of Ted's deteriorating health. I immediately wrote a short note to Ted wishing him fast recovery along with some reminiscences of our association. I was very pleased and touched to receive, within a week's time, a very positive email from him, recalling highlights of social learning during long spells of field work in India and subsequent academic interactions in Australia. This letter from Ted and the family photographs, which he shared at my request, will be a treasure for the rest of my life. I was happy to see picture of his expanded family and the grown-up children, with whom I had interacted at their young age during 1981. On hearing the sad demise of Ted on July 4, 2022, a sequence of events of our long association flashed out through my mind. Some remanences I would like to share with you all.

Beldev Arora's letter continues here

David Robinson

Dear Ted,

It was 1999 when we first met in Sydney harbour. I had the fantastic opportunity to join you, Antony and Graham on the RV Franklin in the Tasman Sea. That journey was a rough one, as I recall, and despite being ill I was able to learn so much from the three of you, not only about offshore magnetotellurics, but about what it means to be a good scientist. It is hard not to be captured by your enthusiasm and ongoing quest to understand the world around us.

When I joined GA in 2001 you welcomed me as part of the ACT geophysics community and I again had that opportunity to feed from your enthusiasm. It was great to interact with you at ASEG meetings and to have your support as I undertook various office roles as part of the ACT Branch of the ASEG. When I joined RSES as a graduate student in 2005 it was lovely to have a friendly face in the tea room. I knew that whenever you were there I would be greeted with kindness and that you were always willing to listen to what I and other students were up to. It was very encouraging and went a long way towards creating a positive and welcoming environment for us to grow and develop.

Throughout your career you have touched many of us and I hope that we have in-turn been able to pass on some of that enthusiasm and quest for knowledge to others. I recently had the pleasure of delivering a farewell speech for Ron Hackney who is leaving us at GA (at least temporary) to lead the Australia New Zealand IODP Consortium at RSES. In preparing my notes for his speech I reflected on the fact that it was indeed you and Penny who first introduced Kavitha and I to Ron and Allison when you hosted a welcome home lunch for them. It is precisely this that I will remember the most about you. Your genuine concern and interest in the lives of others, in this example demonstrated through hosting a lunch especially for their return to Canberra to ensure that they had an opportunity to reacquaint with and meet new people in the ACT geophysics circle.

In my work office at home I have a bookshelf and in there sits a book that you gave to me when I was studying at RSES. It is your copy of Geophysical Inverse Research Theory by Robert Parker which at the time you advised that you had mastered already and passed to me where you felt it would be of more use. Inside the cover is a lovely message from you passing the book to me and wishing me all the best with my career. I hope to one day pass that book on to someone who is representative of the next generation of geophysicist.

Thank you Ted - for all that you have done for me and the geophysics community in Australia. We will be forever grateful.

Kindest Regards

David

George Jiracek - My thoughts to Ted, May 29, 2022

Hi Ted:

It's been a while since we last talked; I really don't remember when. But, I'll never forget in November 1986 when you invited me to visit you in Canberra. I was spending a sabbatical leave with Keeva Vozoff at Macquarie Univ. As much as I enjoyed sharing EM geophysics with you and your students, it was a party at your home that I have never forgotten and have reminisced about it many times since.

You knew from your knowledge of USA holidays that the day in November was Thanksgiving Day in the States, so it was the theme for the evening. I don't remember the exact menu except that you had pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving was what I grew up with and it was a huge a treat then. I'll simply never forget how thoughtful you were back then, over 35 years ago.

That wasn't the only thing that night! Having been an amateur astronomer since high school, I was, of course, impressed by the Southern Cross in the Austral night sky. But, I didn't know how to use its orientation to locate the place in the heavens where a South Pole Star would have been. You pointed-out a nice geometrical scheme using one's outstretched hand and the Southern Cross, to locate that spot. You'll have to teach me that rule again.

Thank you again for these memories and, surely others, of a more academic nature that I've forgotten.

Very best regards,

George Jiracek

Alan Jones

I will never forget the first time I met Ted Lilley - it was the day before the Murnau EM Induction Workshop in 1978.

But first a mention that Ted's papers in the 1970s were de rigueur reading and devouring for all, both students and academics, who wanted to advance their understanding of EM induction generally, and Geomagnetic Depth Sounding (GDS) and MT specifically. Particularly Ted's paper on "Diagrams for magnetotelluric data" (Lilley, F.E.M., 1976. Geophysics, 41, 766-770. P31) was very influential and started me on my road to understand the various "shapes" that the MT tensor can take.

I arrived into Murnau the day before the start of the workshop, and Rosemary Hutton told me that Ted Lilley was down at the camp site, and I should go and meet him. So I walked down to find Ted in a circle with a number of young people, and I joined the circle. Ted went around to us one at a time, and asked us what we were doing. He had words of wisdom and encouragement for all of us.

I was struck then by Ted's gentle character, his positive enthusiasm, his generous spirit, but perhaps most of all by his wonder at the world of EM induction.

We met many times at meetings and workshops, and enjoyed discussions together.

The last time we met was in November, 2014, when he came to dinner at the apartment I had rented in Greenwich, in the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, when I was at Macquarie for a month. We corresponded since, mostly about of course the MT impedance tensor.

Our last correspondence was a few days before Ted died. Ted's last words to me were "What a great position we found ourselves in, those 50-odd years ago (barely realising it). What fun it would be to do it all again!"

Ted to me was one of the last of the generation of generous, thoughtful, gentleman, and one gentlewoman (Rosemary Hutton), scientists who mentored me through the 1970s. When I think of those who showed me what a wonderful and positive life academic magnetotellurics could be, I think of Ulrich Schmucker, of Peter Weidelt, of John Weaver, of Rosemary Hutton, and of Ted.

Vale Ted!

John Weaver

With the sad passing of Ted Lilley, we have lost yet another of the pillars of the EM induction group who made such vital contributions to the field from the early 1970s onwards. Ted attended many, if not most of the Workshops in those pioneering days and was often the lone representative from the southern hemisphere. He was a versatile member of the group, equally at home talking about singular value decomposition, setting up MT stations in the isolated outback, taking part in aeromagnetic surveys or researching the history of some aspect of geomagnetism. The list of his graduate students now holding important positions worldwide attests to his influence and inspiring leadership. With his kind, modest and generous nature he was everybody's friend.

On a personal level, I have enjoyed many good times with Ted both in Victoria and Australia, whether it was watching the rugby world cup with him in a pub in Victoria, or hiking with him, Penny and Ludmilla in the Australian Snowy Mountains where, unbelievably, we had to shelter from a freak snowstorm in early December! Above all, we enjoyed a fabulous and stimulating sabbatical leave in Canberra in 1996 where Ted and Penny were gracious hosts, introducing us to various aspects of Australian life as well as many of their friends and colleagues.

I extend my heartfelt sympathy to Penny and the family. May this fine gentleman, talented scientist, and good friend rest in peace.

John Weaver
Victoria, BC

Heather McCreadie

Dear All,

It is with a sad heart I hear the news of Teds passing today. Unfortunately, I missed the funeral dedication.

Ted had a wonderful impact on my life. He was a kind hearted gentle person who had an interest in what I am interested in, the Earth's magnetic field. When Ted was around everyone was always smiling and learning. He will be missed.

Regards,

Heather

Ron Hackney

Despite receiving the sad news that things were not going so well for Ted, I was reassured to hear that he was being inundated with e-correspondence from colleagues and friends from all corners of his amazing life. Like for many others, this news was a pause for reflection for me. It always brings a smile to my face to remember the influence that Ted had on my career and on my life, and the pleasure of catching up with him and Penny at various times over the years to hear how things were going with careers and families.

I still clearly remember the day in 1991 when I slotted a 50c piece into the old green pay-phone at Toad Hall, where I lived at ANU, to give Ted a call to ask about geophysics as a career option. I did this on the recommendation of Mike Rickard, the Head of the ANU Geology Department at the time, who had noted my ongoing interest in physics and maths, but also my enthusiasm for geology (a subject I hadn't seriously contemplated until, ironically, I dropped a first-year computer programming course that I hated!). Shortly after that call I signed up to Ted's second year geophysics course and became a member of the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists. The latter cemented my connection to geophysics - I have been a member ever since!

Ted's "sales pitch" for geophysics was certainly confirmed by that second-year geophysics course. I loved the course, not just the content, but also the anecdotes on the various geophysicists, both famous and less well known, that Ted had met during his career.

One of my favourite activities during the course was measuring and then modelling gravity data across the Parkes Way road tunnel adjacent to the ANU. This may have been a subconscious lead into what ended up being a focus on gravity as my geophysics career progressed.

When I had the chance to contribute to an undergraduate teaching course at ANU almost 20 years later, I used the data from Ted's Parkes Way tunnel practical as part of the student exercise. Unfortunately there wasn't time to have these students make the measurements over the tunnel themselves (or maybe it was more that insurance considerations prevented it?), so instead I dug out my old notes and used the historical data from Ted's course to constrain the modelling.

After completing my undergraduate studies in the ANU Geology Department, I branched out to the Research School of Earth Sciences via a project I did with Ted as a Vacation Scholar over the summer of 1992/93. He didn't quite convince me to stay on and do an Honours project with him...

Almost 30 years later, my career returned closer to Ted's passion when I took on the role of Director of the Onshore Seismic and Magnetotellurics section at Geoscience Australia. That gave me a new appreciation of the power of MT data in inferring subsurface geology. I always knew MT as a useful method, but I was truly impressed once I got close to the work of the GA team and their many collaborators. During this time there were a few thoughts in my mind as to what might have been if I'd become a grad student of Ted Lilley's and gone down an EM path instead...

We have all had amazing journeys to get to where we are today. Like many who will read this, my journey has so many great memories of Ted's influence on my life and career. I will forever hold those memories dearly and remember the opportunities I've had to learn and grow from Ted's genuine interest and unending support.

Denis Winch

I first met Ted when he was in Newcastle upon Tyne working with Paul Roberts on the Earth's dynamo using the Bullard and Gellman formulation of the problem in about 1974. He made good progress on the problem and dealt with some unexpected difficulties that gave us all some warning on some interesting problems that can arise when applying an interesting theory to some practical data from all over the Earth to determine fluid flows in the Earth's deep interior.

Just before he retired, he organized a trip for his colleagues to Recherche Bay in Tasmania by chartered ferry from Hobart to celebrate the bicentenary of the first geophysical measurements in Australia. It was an interesting crowd who came along, Dudley Parkinson was there on the trip. My son Andrew came along as well and it gave him an interest in geophysics. When Andrew graduated from Sydney Uni in Geology and Geophysics, he was offered work with CGG (Companie Generale de Geophysique) in the interpretation of speculative geophysical sounding data searching for oil. He liked the geophysical work and stayed in that position for 25 years, at present he is working on a research problem at UWA Perth.

I particularly remember when Ted organized a day on Sydney Harbour for his colleagues in his yacht. We were all impressed when Ted telephoned to get swing bridge open. It had been a very enjoyable day, and we all had a try at steering his yacht. At the end of the day as he sailed off in his yacht and we heard him singing, "Now is the Hour".

Ted certainly brought the geomagnetic community together, which is not an easy thing to do, given the distances involved and work obligations.