AASP Primary Records Program

ICP Newsletter 6(2): p. 1, 1983.

For Jan Muller, having studied tropical agronomy, the second world war kept him from going to the Dutch Indies and because of this he was employed in a pedology research center, associated with the works of a draining system of the ancient Zuiderzee. Thus he became initiated with the method of modern palynology, which later became his goal in life. The 5th of October 1983, our colleague and friend Jan Muller died suddenly of a short and fatal illness. As it was, he disappeared in full activity, occupying his life to the problems of taxonomy, phylogeny, pollen and spores.

At the end of the war, Jan Muller joined the Shell Oil Company and was one of the first palynologists to be employed by this Company. He began working in Venezuela, proving himself with the classical article. "The application of Palynology to oil geology with reference to Western Venezuela" published in collaboration with O.S. Kuyl and T.H. Waterbolk in 1954. Later he increased his knowledge of tropical palynoflora fossils during his stay in Sarawak, where he also studied the Holocene flora of the large peat-bogs of this region.

His master-piece during these years as an oil palynologist is without doubt "Palynology of recent Orinoco delta and shelf sediments" published in Micropaleontology (January, 1959).

This primary study of the distribution of pollen and spores, and also of other organic microfossils such as cuticles, Hystrichospheres, etc. provided the method of easily separating local palynological elements from regional elements, always in relation with the facies of sediments, the transportation by (water) currents, the distribution of pollen thus permitting the distinction of palynological provinces related to the mechanism of palynological association deposits.

This method has also been applied with much success on palynoflora fossils and has led to a better recognition of the causes of fossils palynofacies.

In 1967, Jan Muller was nominated palynologist at the Herbarium of the University of Leiden. There he directed his interests towards the morphological and taxonomical aspects of pollen, notably in relation with phylogenese problems. One only has to mention his work on Sonneratiaceae being one among many others. His main occupation during these last few years was phylogenia and the history of, angiosperm pollen, exposed in his "Fossil pollen records of extant Angiosperms" of 1981, the results of much experience and a great knowledge of literature.

Jan Muller was a very modest and discreet man, always ready to help other researchers as well as his students, and never working for official recognition of his qualities. Nevertheless in 1979, it was recognized when the University of Amsterdam awarded him the doctorate honoris causa, so well deserved.

In trying to sum up our thoughts, we can only add that for us, his colleagues and friends, the memory of a very competent man with many qualities will always remain.

W.H. Zagwijn
Haarlem, November 8th 1993