AASP Primary Records Program

Here are excerpts from Ray Malloy's autobiography, provided by Dr. Harry Leffingwell (HL), August 25, 2002. The entire document is available from AASP. Contact Owen Davis palynolo@geo.arizona.edu

HL: You were one of the palynological pioneers in the petroleum industry, starting in research and then progressing for most of your career to operational offices in South America and the United States. What was it like in the early days of Exxon's Carter Oil Company Research Laboratory, later known as the Jersey Production Research Center, in Tulsa?

RM: First off, I should say something I learned later. Dr. Evitt and several other palynologists or budding palynologists had been through Tulsa and through the lab, and of course, Harry Leffingwell came later. But they paved the way for me and I was quite awed at the time by the general quality of the staff in the lab. Dr. Ricker, for example, was a co-inventor of the modern paper cone loud speaker. I think he was an electrical engineer. I'm not sure of that now. So it was my good luck, and, of course, Wilson was involved, and he came to visit the lab as a consultant, and had advised me. When I told him I couldn't continue anymore at Illinois, he advised me to go to Tulsa. I probably had the same impression as a young person from the East that there couldn't be any great research lab in Indian Territory, but I was soon disillusioned - I dropped my illusions quickly. There was an enclave of very fine professional people at the lab.
....

HL: The same year after the publication of the Hardinsburg formation in 1955, you collaborated with the same co-authors to publish the very useful Stratigraphic Range Charts of 44 Paleozoic Small Spore Genera. All of us who studied the Paleozoic during our academic training in the early days of palynology found that paper immensely useful. It was published in the American Museum of Natural History's very first issue of Micropaleontology, which had to be an honor. Can you provide some background about how all that came about?

RM: I think that it probably came about by the pressure put on Hoffmeister to produce something that could be apparently useful in a practical sense. The other project of the Hardinsburg pointed out that we really didn't have a complete handle on the stratigraphic implications of the study. So we compiled this study and published the range charts and did very well to satisfy some of the skeptics in management who - to be reasonable, their background was so different from paleobotany and stratigraphy - that they couldn't understand it until they got a good look at these range charts.

by Harry A. Leffingwell, Laguna Beach, CA and G. C. (Butch) Brown, Ventura, CA.
Reprinted from the AASP Newsletter 35(3), 2002.

Raymond E. Malloy died on July 15, 2002 in a Boston, Massachusetts, hospital of complications from openheart surgery. He was born in Arlington, Massachusetts in 1922, and spent his formative years in the Boston area. Ray graduated from Weston, Massachusetts High School, and received a scholarship to Harvard University. His college education was interrupted by World War II, by his enlistment in the Army Air Corps in 1942, whereupon he became a navigator of a B-17 bomber crew attached to 401st Bomber Wing of the Eighth Air Force, stationed in England. In July, 1944, Ray's plane was shot down over Munich, Germany, during his fifth bombing mission, and he spent the remainder of the war in a prisoner of war camp.

After returning home from the war, the young lieutenant married his college sweetheart, Norma Deacon, and continued his education at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he received a B. A. degree in business, and, in 1951, a M.S. degree in geology, under the supervision of Professor L. R. Wilson. For his thesis, he described the Carboniferous flora of the No. 40 coal seam in the famous Joggins section in Nova Scotia. Later, this locality was the site of a memorable field trip during the AASP Annual Meeting in 1976.

Ray continued his study of Paleozoic floras with Dr. Robert Kosanke of the Illinois Geological Survey. In 1952, he took a position at the Carter Oil Company Research Laboratory in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an affiliate of Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso). Here he co-authored two early papers on Paleozoic palynology with Drs. William Hoffmeister and Frank Staplin: Mississippian Plant Spores from the Hardinsburg Formation of Illinois and Kentucky, and Geologic Ranges of Paleozoic Spores in North America. The latter publication enhanced the appreciation and accelerated the applications of palynology in oil exploration, especially within the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.

In 1955, Ray was transferred to the International Petroleum Company (an Esso affiliate) in Bogota, Columbia, to establish a palynological laboratory, where he developed zonations for both the central and eastern Columbian Tertiary section. While in Bogota, he formed a close working relationship with Dr. Thomas van der Hammen of the Geological Survey of Columbia. In 1958, Ray was transferred to Talara, Peru, as Chief Paleontologist, where he established another palynological laboratory for International Petroleum Company. Here, Ray concentrated mainly on exploration problems in the Peruvian jungle.

In 1961, Ray returned to the United States, to the Humble Oil Research Laboratory in Houston, Texas, another Esso affiliate. Shortly thereafter, he established a palynological laboratory in Corpus Christi, Texas, to aid Humble Oil in the exploration of the Tertiary Frio and Vicksburg formations in the Gulf of Mexico. Ray returned to Humble Oil's Research Laboratory, in 1965, as a member of the central operational palynological group. After spending a short time with the Gulf Oil Company in Houston, Ray published one of the early papers on dinoflagellate cyst lineages, based on his studies from Gabon, West Africa, while with Gulf Oil.

In the early 1970's, the Western Region of Union Oil Company of California realized the need to expand the number of disciplines used in their paleo support effort. First and foremost in this need was the science of stratigraphic palynology. Ray was hired and was the perfect fit. Because of his worldwide background in geology and sedimentation, he was immediately involved in many of the company's ongoing projects. In addition to freely sharing his broad-based knowledge with all, Ray was also a teacher and a mentor. He worked with two of the group's younger professionals, teaching them palynology. Both these young men continued their education, eventually receiving Masters degrees in Geology, with specialties in Palynology.

Retiring in 1986, Ray and Norma moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Norma pre-deceased Ray in 1991. Ray is survived by two sons, Douglas, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, and Jeffrey, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and four grandchildren.

Ray Malloy was a member of AASP, the Society of Organic Petrographers, and the Pacific Sections of the AAPG and SEPM.

Friends and colleagues will remember Ray as one of the pioneers of palynology, especially in its applications to oil exploration. He is also fondly remembered for his dry wit, which was enhanced by his erudite use of the English language; for his generosity in sharing his knowledge with both recently graduated and more seasoned palynologists; his love of boating and bridge; and his intense interest and colourful commentary about contemporary politics. Ray Malloy was truly a professionals' professional, and a joy to all those with whom he was associated.