SEG - Society of Economic Geologists

JULY 2012 • No 90 SEG NEWSLETTER 55
DEATH
HEINRICH DIETER HOLLAND (SEG 1968 SF)
H.D. (Dick) Holland died May 21, 2012, in Wynnewood,
Pennsylvania. Dick was born May 27, 1927, in Mannheim,
Germany, emigrating via Kindertransport to England in 1939,
thence via the Dominican Republic, where his parents and
young sister were moved, to the United States in 1940. He
earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, with highest honors,
at Princeton University in 1946 and served in the U.S.
Army in 1946–1947. Dick received his master’s degree in
geology in 1948 and Ph.D. in 1952 from Columbia University,
working with Professor Laurence Kulp in the first group of
geochemists assembled at Columbia. He joined the faculty at
Princeton in 1950, advancing from instructor to full professor
during his tenure, until 1972. From 1972 to 2006, Dick
was professor at Harvard University, ultimately with the
Harry C. Dudley Professorship in Economic Geology. Finally,
from 2006 until his death, Dick was Visiting Scholar in the
Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the
University of Pennsylvania, where he remained actively
engaged in research and mentoring until very shortly before
his death. During his long academic career, visiting appointments
and sabbaticals included Oxford and Durham Univer -
sities, the University of Hawaii, Heidelburg University, the
Pennsylvania State University, Imperial College, London,
and Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was a member of the
National Academy of Science and the winner of many distinguished
awards and fellowships, all around the world.
Dick was a distinguished member of the generation of
chemists who migrated at mid-century to the earth sciences
in search of applications of the rapidly advancing theory
and practice of quantitative chemistry. Early in his career,
Dick found fertile ground for his quantitative bent that coupled
with his enthusiasm for geology in the burgeoning field
of economic geology. Dick published 20 papers in Economic
Geology (and many more elsewhere), with his first citation in
1954 (“Geochemical Prospecting at Cobalt Ontario,” v. 49,
p. 378–388, with George Koehler and Blair Hostettler), and
his final publication in 2005 for the 100 th Anniversary
Volume (“Sedimentary Mineral Deposits and the Evolution
of the Earth’s Near-Surface Environment,” v. 100, p. 1489–
1509). Among the many papers, his quantitative contributions
are well shown by the two-part sequence “Applications
of Thermodynamic Data to the Problems of Ore Deposition,”
[Part I in 1959 (v. 54, p. 184–233) and Part II in 1965 (v. 60,
p. 1101–1166)]. His large-scale synthesis of the geochemical
conditions of ore genesis is well represented by his 1972
paper, “Granites, Solutions, and Base Metal Deposits (v. 67,
p. 281–301). Even when his research migrated back to issues
of the geochemical evolution of the oceans and atmosphere,
ore deposits—particularly the great Precambrian banded iron
formations (BIF)—were central to addressing Dick’s research
interest. His first paper on BIF was published in Economic
Geology in 1964, and his most recent in Science in 2007. Dick
received the Penrose Gold Medal of the Society of Economic
Geologists in 1995, was a Distinguished Lecturer in 1969,
and the Thayer Lindsley Lecturer in 1981-1982. Over his
more than half-century of teaching, he instructed and
H.D. Holland (right) and Dr. Antje Danielson, Labrador, 1991 (Photo by
Andrew Macfarlane, used with permission)
mentored generations of economic geologists widely distributed
at universities, geological surveys, and in private
industry across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and
South America.
Dick was known by his students and fellow researchers as
a man of scientific rigor and great intellect. But we came to
know him also as a committed citizen of his adopted country,
as a teacher working at levels from science instruction of
inner-city youth and their teachers to some of our finest universities,
and as a general counselor on science policy
through his work with the National Academy. His friends
found him to be a man of great good humor—fond of argument,
but as much so of laughter, knowledgeable of the fine
arts, history, and literature (in several languages!), and a connoisseur
of wines, especially his beloved Rieslings. He was a
devoted family man. Above all else, we will remember him
as a man of great loyalty to his friends and students—a trait
on which we all have relied, sometimes over and over again.
H.D. Holland was predeceased by his son Matthew and
his wife, Alice. His survivors include three children, Henry,
Anne, and John, four grandchildren, and a sister and a
brother.
In lieu of flowers, the immediate family requests that
donations be forwarded in Memory of Heinrich D. Holland
to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(http://www.ushmm.org/) or the National Academy of
Sciences, Committee on Human Rights (http://sites.national
academies.org/PGA/humanrights/index.htm).
Contributed by Mark J. Logsdon (Aptos, California) and
Hiroshi Ohmoto (the Pennsylvania State University). We gratefully
acknowledge generous assistance from Harvard University,
the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University, Drs.
Antje Danielson and Andrew Macfarlane, the SEG staff, and the
Holland family.
To read an additional obituary from Dr. Holland’s daughter,
Anne Liebrecht Holland, please visit the online SEG
Newsletter supplement.
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