In memoriam: John Platt Bradbury (1936–2005)

Authors

Walter Dean, US Geological Survey, Denver, COFollow
Sherilyn C. Fritz, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Cathy Whitlock, Montana State University - BozemanFollow
William Watts, Trinity College, Dublin

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2005

Comments

Published in Journal of Paleolimnology (2005) 34: iii–iv; DOI 10.1007/s10933-005-2506-1

Abstract

John Platt Bradbury, a former United States Geological Survey (USGS) geologist, and a long time and much valued editorial board member for the Journal of Paleolimnology, died of cancer (abdominal mesothelioma) on August 15, 2005, in the log home that he and his wife Vera Markgraf built in the mountains near Monte Vista, Colorado. Platt’s interest in paleolimnology developed during his graduate school years at the University of New Mexico, working with Roger Anderson and Walt Dean. He received his Ph.D. in 1967. He went on to do post-doctoral research at Yale University under G. Evelyn Hutchinson and then became an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Limnological Research Center, where, among other projects, he worked on a multidisciplinary study of the Klutlan Glacier, Yukon Territory (Bradbury and Whiteside 1980). In 1975, he joined the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the USGS, where he offered a primary specialty in continental diatoms and secondary specialty in Quaternary palynology. Platt’s work focused on developing a continental diatom biostratigraphy for Miocene through Quaternary sediments and on paleoclimatic reconstructions from lacustrine records.