AASP Primary Records Program

Robert Kosanke

photo

AASP Newsletter 29(3): p. 9-10, 1996.

IN MEMORIUM
ROBERT M. KOSANKE
1917-1996

Robert M. Kosanke, one of the pioneers of palynological research in North America, died April 17, 1996, at the age of 78, at his home in Lakewood, Colorado, after a short illness. Though he had retired from his 30-year tenure in the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch, U.S. Geological Survey, in Denver in 1993, he had continued serious research on several projects and was in his office daily until the end. Bob was a quiet, serious, aand strongly disciplined man of highest integreity. He was careful, logical, thorough, and talented in his work. He was also most generous with his time and talents to students and colleagues. He was dedicated to promoting his sciences and the scientific organizations to which he belonged as an editor, teacher, contributor, officer, administrator, and fnend.

Kosanke's introduction to his lifelong commitment to geology, and to research in paleobotany, palynology, and coal geology in particular, came in 1937 when he enrolled in the Physical Geology course at Coe College, taught by L.R. Wilson. Bob had come to Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from his home in Park Ridge, Illinois, on a football scholarship. Football practice and team games or trips, required his presence most late afternoons. After Bob missed Wilson's first two afternoon field trips to quarries, sand pits, bogs and glacial features, Wilson was unmoved by Bob's entreaty for special consideration to make up the missed trips with some special reports. Prof. Wilson said acceptable field reports were required to pass the course. At that time, this author (ATC) was the undergraduate assistant in the course. We both roomed at the Y.M.C.A., so after the second field trip (of about 6) Bob came to my room one evening and asked if I could help him. The only solution was to take Bob out on Sundays and retrace the missed field trips with him, explaining as best I could all the features Dr. Wilson had explained. To make the trip more enjoyable for all of us, I included a local woman student, who had a car (a necessity to reach the field sites), and my sister, who was also a student at Coe College. Several similar trips followed the first two "make-up" trips and Bob's reports were more than adequate. Two side-effects, unplanned and unexpected, but with lifelong rewards, emanated from this happening:

Wilson encouraged Bob to take up geology as a major and get out of football; and Bob became interested in my sister, Avalonne, without my knowledge. Later, when Bob and I were in Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati, Bob and Avalonne were married, March 5, 1941.

Bob enjoyed his program of studies at Coe College and participated in two general reconnaissance and collecting trips, led by Dr. Wilson, to various major geological points of interest in the High Plains, Rocky Mountains, and intermontane basins. In the 1939 trip he was with Wilson's party of 5 or 6 who climbed the Grand Teton. He wrote a Major Honors thesis on microfossils in a pre-Kansan peat deposit in central Iowa under Wilson's direction (Wilson and Kosanke, 1940).

Bob entered graduate school at the University of Cincinnati in the Department of Botany under Prof. J.H. Hoskins. While there he had opportunity to take many courses equally in botany and geology. Special courses in plant morphology, wood anatomy, plant systematics and ecology were particularly valuable to him in later years in palynology, paleoecology and research on coal constituents and their origin. He also took several courses in paleontology from Dr. Kenneth E. Caster. His M.S. thesis, under Hoskins' direction, was the first palynological study in the Appalachian Coal region, an analysis of pollen and spores and stratigraphic relationships of the Pennsylvanian age Pittsburgh and Pomeroy coal beds in southeastern Ohio (Kosanke, 1943).

Kosanke continued to take additional courses at Cincinnati until he received Dr. Gilbert H. Cady's offer to join the Illinois State Geological Survey Coal Group in January, 1943. There he met Dr. Jack Simon, who still resides in Urbana, and has remained Bob's closest friend and colleague until Bob's death. Bob worked for a short time with Jim Schopf before Schopfjoined the U.S. Bureau ofMines in Pittsburgh. At Illinois, Bob became immediately involved in coal palynology, coal petrography, stratigraphy, and mapping coal resources.

In 1945, Bob entered the doctorate program in Botany at University of Illinois, while continuing his work with the Survey. His dissertation, completed in 1955 under the direction of Wilson Stewart, reported on the morphology of a Pennsylvanian Calamites cone, Mazostachys (Kosanke, 1955). This was his major paleobotanical research contnbution. In 1958 he received a part time appointment at the University of Illinois as Associate Professor, where he taught graduate classes in palynology.

Kosanke's 1950 treatise on the Pennsylvanian palynoflora of the Illinois Basin was the first major basinwide monograph on a pollenl spore flora in North America. His pioneering report included 100 new species of the 130 sporomorphs differentiated from 50 coal beds sampled in 47 counties. A summary of generic characteristics of 19 genera, 5 new, was included. The report demonstrated in detail the value of palynomorphs in the correlation of coal beds. That paper, together with the Schopf, Wilson, Bentall classic (1944), also published by the Illinois State Geological Survey, are epochal contributions that stabilized North American pre-Quatemary paleopalynology research. Kosanke's palynological research at Illinois was ably carried on by his student, Russel A. Peppers, after Bob left in April, 1963, to join the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey as Research Geologist. Peppers' two memoirs (1964, 1970) amplified Bob's palynology research in the mid-continent.

Dr. Kosanke's research in his 30-year tenure at the U.S. Geological Survey itt Denver included two major long-term projects. The first was working with the Kentucky Branch of U.S. Geological Survey on palynological correlation of several commercial coal beds in eastern Kentucky (Kosanke, 1974, 1965-1972). The last was the palynology of the entire Pennsylvanian stratotype section in West Virginia with supporting work in Ohio. Three major publications (Kosanke, l988a, l988b, and 1988c) resulted from this comprehensive enterprise. He was called upon for dozens of other research and service projects in between major assignments. His last major contributions were published as a co-author on three chapters in the very recent GSA Memoir 185, 1995, "Historical Perspectives of Early Twentieth Century Carboniferous Paleobotany in North America" (Kosanke and Cross, 1995; Cross, Kosanke, and Phillips, 1995; and Cross and Kosanke, 1995). The latter paper on the history of Carboniferous palynology in North America provides an extensive overview of early palynological research in which he played so major a role.

Bob has been a long time member of the American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists (AASP),TheGeological Societyof America (GSA), the Botanical Society of America (BSA), Paleontological Society (PS), the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). As secretary of the Coal Committee of SEG, 1946-55, Bob, together with colleagues Jim Schopf, Jack Simon, and Gilbert Cady, obtained recognition and permission to hold special technical meetings, symposia, and field trips on palynology and coal geology under the auspices of SEG. These four men were also the founding members of the Coal Geology Division of the Geological Society of America in 1955. Bob was chairman of the Coal Geology Division, 1955-1966 and councilor, 1976-77. He was also secretary three years and later chairman of the Paleobotanical Section. These were the only organizations to regularly sponsor palynology papers and symposia at annual and regional meetings in North America until the founding of AASP in 1967. The Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists (SEPM) also sponsored two major symposia in which he participated.

Dr. Kosanke received many well-deserved honors and awards. He received the prestigious Geological Society of America Gilbert H. Cady Award for contributions in Coal Geology in 1989, and the Distinguished Service Award (1991) for outstanding contributions to the Coal Geology Division. He was a recipient of the Paleobotanical Section of the Botanical Society 50th Anniversary Award and he was elected Fellow in several societies. In 1993, the U.S. Geological Survey awarded him the Meritorious Service Award. The Denver Botanical Gardens elected him to Life Membership and presented him two awards for more than 1000 hours volunteer work for each. One event in which he was most honored was in presenting the first Gilbert H. Cady Award to James M. Schopfin 1973.

When I reported his passing to one of his colleagues from the Smithsonian Institution the remark came instantly: "One of the giant pioneer oaks in palynology and coal geology has fallen." We in these collateral sciences will miss him greatly. My sister, Avalonne Jane, his talented wife of55 years, and his two sons, Robert Charles of California, and Kenneth Raymond of the Denver area, will miss him even more. We are all beneficiaries of his legacy.

Aureal T. Cross
Department of Geological Sciences
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan 48824

References cited: