Dedication

Bill Normark grew up in Wyoming, surrounded by geology and with geology in his family. He graduated with a B.S. in geology from Stanford University in 1965 and then went to Scripps Institution of Oceanography to do a Ph.D. in the rapidly developing field of marine geology. While at Scripps, he worked with Fred Spiess and Joe Curray using deep-tow geophysical instrumentation to understand the La Jolla, San Lucas, and Monterey submarine fans. As a graduate student, he spent a lot of time at sea, honing his skills as a pragmatic and practical seagoing scientist. He also spent enough time back on the beach to meet and marry his wife of 40 years, Dorothy Jean, known to all as DJ.

Bill's time at Scripps proved to be a microcosm of his later work on submarine fans: the application of geophysical methods to understand fans, tempered with an understanding of core and outcrop geology and of turbidity current flow processes. Out of Bill's thesis came his seminal 1970 American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin paper on growth patterns of deep-sea fans, identified in one textbook as marking the beginning of “sophisticated studies of modern fans.” Bill's subsequent work on the California Continental Borderland, particularly on Navy and Hueneme fans, established them as type examples of small, sandy submarine fans. Bill's productive interaction with Emiliano Mutti brought together detailed experience of outcrops and geophysical understanding of modern submarine fans to systematize the architectural analysis of turbidite systems. His early experiments in Lake Superior, and later fruitful interaction with Tony Bowen and Gary Parker, led to important contributions on how turbidity currents flow. Bill played an international role as a leader in coordinated assessments of turbidite systems, through the COMFAN I and II conferences and both major Ocean Drilling Program/Deep Sea Drilling Project fan legs (Leg 96 to the Mississippi fan and 155 to the Amazon fan).

Bill made seminal contributions to other areas of marine geoscience. He was one of the pioneers of research on active seafloor hydrothermal systems, diving on the first cruise to identify the hydrothermal vents and black smokers at 21°N on the East Pacific Rise. From his background with mining in the Rockies, he recognized that these high-temperature vent sites were a natural laboratory for understanding volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits and initiated and led the U.S. Geological Survey ocean ridge minerals program. Later, as chief scientist of the EEZ GLORIA survey off Hawaii, he was the first to systematically map the volcanic flank collapses, leading to the modern interest in their tsunamogenic potential.

I count myself very fortunate to have worked so closely with Bill Normark throughout both our diverse professional careers. When I was a Ph.D. student working on terrestrial sedimentology, he showed me what we could learn from the marine realm. We had 40 exciting and productive years of collaboration, at sea and in the lab. Bill brought his sharp mind, his strategic direction, his ability to focus on the important, his broad experience, and a polite scepticism of my more ridiculous ideas to our collaborations. He was a frequent and welcome guest at our home, and many a productive brainstorming session took place over a glass of wine at the kitchen table.

Whatever Bill did, he did well. He was full of energy and meticulously organized. He had a clear mind that could see what was important in a mass of data. He enjoyed good traveling, good food, and good wine. Winemaking was an important part of his life, and just as with his science, he won medals for his work. He always had time for those starting their careers; he mentored many students and interns. Never did his dedication and inner strength come through more strongly than in his final seven-year battle with kidney cancer, when despite a challenging range of treatments and side effects, he continued to work, write influential papers, go to sea, travel the world with DJ, make award-winning wine, and pass on his insights and experience to the next generation. This volume on the California Continental Borderland is a fitting tribute to a scientist who did his first and his last marine work in the Borderland and whose interests encompassed and went far beyond the range of studies presented here.