Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content

REVIEWS

A Passion for Gold—An Autobiography. RALPH J. ROBERTS (WITH MARY BETH GENTRY), 2002. Pp. 232. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. Price: $29.95: proceeds to Center for Research in Economic Geology, Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada, Reno.

A Passion for Gold is a must-read. Roberts has followed and continues to enjoy a passionate life-long quest for truth. This quest has influenced many generations of economic geologists in both academia and industry. As manifested in this easily read autobiographical sketch, Roberts has demonstrated that knowledge is advanced and impacted often by the passion of the scientist for his or her research and by life’s circumstances. His academic contributions, significant as they are, however, have only served as a foundation for his repeated incursions into mineral exploration, specifically gold exploration, which he officially began after a long career with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Throughout the book Roberts attributes much of his academic success, and certainly his formative research years with the U.S. Geological Survey, to "the freedom to select and carry out unique research projects so long as they fit into the overall program," truly a necessity to promote unfettered progress in scientific endeavors. Roberts devotes approximately half of the book to the chronicling of a fascinating governmental career that interwove field-oriented assignments with economic geology during a 44-year period. This era, beginning in 1937, spanned the glory days of the U.S. Geological Survey, to which Roberts’ myriad contributions and accomplishments brought significant credit and acclaim. An early example, and perhaps one of his best-known scientific contributions, is his documentation of the North American middle Paleozoic, continental-scale Antler orogeny first published in 1949. This orogeny emplaced Paleozoic siliciclastic rocks large distances over their equivalent-age carbonate rocks along a major thrust fault. His . . . [Full Text of this Article]