Geologic
Base Line for Conservation Philosophy
William T. Pecora
Berkeley, California January 18, 1972
To one who has spent his professional career in geologic science,
conservation always has had special meaning. In the measurements
so necessary to his work, the geologist develops an integrity in
the use of numbers and in the qualifications attending the validity
of numbers. Scientific analysis of geologic events and sequence
develops a keen sense of what is coincidental, correlative, and
consequential. The geologist applies his science in evaluating hazards
to man such as natural catastrophes, and benefits to man such as
earth materials that form the resource base of his society. But
more than these, the geologist has acquired a deep appreciation
for the planet as a whole, its inner structure, its landscape, and
the living things that abound.
By his training and avocation the geologist is an earth scientist
and conservationist - therefore closer to nature in its entirety
than any other scientist. There are many kinds of conservation in
today's world. The classical stance showed its full face at the
turn of the century with the voices of John Wesley Powell, W J McGee,
and F. H. Newell, all leaders of the U. S. Geological Survey speaking
to multiple and prudent use of the land and all of its resources.
Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the U. S. Forest Service, adopted
the McGee concept of "greatest good for the greatest number
for the longest period of time" as the theme for the new conservation
movement. He so impressed President Theodore Roosevelt, our first
Conservation President, that it became the theme of the Governors'
Conference in 1908.
Largely because of World War I and the postwar recovery period,
the new conservation movement suffered severely from the new economics
and GNP. Industry and development became prevalent themes and minimum
cost econometrics superseded total cost in practice. Social and
environmental issues were essentially put aside.
Concept of Uniqueness
One basic concept of a classical conservation philosophy is identity
of uniqueness in the natural environment. Proper application of
this concept includes biological and geological resources - both
renewable and nonrenewable.
The establishment of Yellowstone Park a century ago was the first
national step implementing the concept. Here, a major land area
was set aside by Act of Congress in order to preserve unique natural
features for the education and enjoyment of all people. The park
has been protected in spite of great resource values known to exist
within its boundaries such as gold, hydro power, and geothermal
energy. The Everglades National Park is a similar preserve where
visitors can enjoy a rare and delicate ecosystem peculiar to sub-tropical
water-based ecology in its natural state. Other areas, such as the
Alaska Wildlife Refuge, are protected and exempted even from the
kind of access permitted in national parks. As of recent count the
federal government has set aside 38 national parks, 82 national
monuments, and 329 wildlife refuges. A wilderness system is currently
in progress.
In like fashion mineral resource areas can be truly unique in their
character and in their occurrence in the accessible part of the
earth's crust. Famous mineral districts like Butte, Montana; Bingham
Canyon, Utah; and Lead, South Dakota, are rare occurrences on a
planetary basis. Unlike the unique vistas and wildlife domains,
unusual mineral deposits serve the public good if they are recovered
in a systematic way. In the long history of man, exploration and
development of mineral resources at specific sites have been temporary
operations. With proper planning before extraction is begun and
proper restoration of the terrain after extraction, there need be
little adverse environmental impact in acceptable trade off of resource
values and multiple use of the total resource base.
The concept of multiple use and sustained yield were two guiding
principles of the classical conservation philosophy expressed at
the turn of the century. Conflicting uses and permanent damage to
other potential resource values have been elements of recent debate
and will remain important subjects in a pluralistic society which
requires both renewable and nonrenewable resources to maintain its
health, welfare, and vigor. It is understandable now that economic
values received highest priority during the developmental stage
of our society. Today the American society is mature in an economic
sense. Understandable pressures are increasing to preserve our dwindling
acreage of the natural terrain, particularly on the public lands.
The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 represents the expression
of a national conscience. This together with other bills before
the Congress will eventually determine the course of our national
conservation policy. Hopefully, the voice of reason will be heard
throughout the land and prudent judgments will be made on the basis
of factual information and thoughtful assessments. Only by examining
man's effects in the light of natural processes can we reach long-term
decisions that will stand the test of time. For this reason, any
philosophy on conservation developed by an individual or a nation
must recognize geologic processes as a base line for reference.
Changing Ecosystems
The primitive indigenous American exercised minimal impact on his
environment and rarely did things that degraded or altered his environment
irreparably. This was not so much a matter of choice as a matter
of capability. Modern man, however, through the sheer force of numbers
and through spiraling science and technology has made major changes,
some of them necessary for his existence and others merely to suit
his fancy.
Transformation of large areas of woodland, bottomland, and prairies
into farms created an agricultural ecosystem that is now an essential
element in our society, although the initial modification of land
was in sharp conflict with the religious belief of the indigent
Indian people. Cities have arisen which concentrate millions of
people within a few hundreds of square miles. Natural shorelines
of rivers and coasts have been modified for livelihood, industry,
and recreation. The highway system of the United States aggregates
the area of the States of Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Delaware (Ellsaesser, 1971). Many rivers have been
dammed to create reservoirs and provide water resources for irrigation,
industry, and municipal use. The environmental changes brought about
by these activities have been relatively rapid in comparison to
most which occur in the natural state.
By contrast, massive changes in earth features that have occurred
slowly in geologic time are relatively inconspicuous. But for research
in the field no awareness would have evolved in the validity of
the Geologic Law of Uniformitarianism - that the present is key
to the past (and the future). Seas exist where land masses once
prevailed, and vice versa. Lakes formed and disappeared. Mountains
became plains and gorges became broad valleys.
Only catastrophic events of nature such as earthquakes, volcanoes,
landslides, floods, and hurricanes rival man's ability to wreak
sudden change.
In small areas man's activity in grazing, agriculture, and settlement
can increase sediment load tenfold to one hundredfold. Total sediment
production in major drainage basins, however, is not significantly
altered by man's activity (Leopold, et al., 1966). Annual average
transport per square mile for U. S. rivers has essentially been
the same since 1909 and an indication that nature dominates stream
loads.
The Impure Atmosphere
Much concern has arisen over man's alteration of the earth's atmosphere
and the potential effect on climate and health. On a planetary basis
the pollution of man has been miniscule in comparison to the natural
baseline. On a local basis, however, concentrated emissions into
the air by man are unacceptably high for reasons of aesthetics,
nuisance, or potential damage to the environment, however temporary.
Rain is looked upon as a purifying phenomenon. The residence time
of particulate matter or chemicals in the lower atmosphere is indeed
a function of the frequency of rainfall. This important role of
rain and snow has been a boon in populous areas where industry exists
in high concentration and the air needs clearing.
Rain itself, however, is not pure. In the hydrologic cycle, the
moisture that eventually falls as rain or snow carries with it chemical
compounds derived from the ocean and from atmospheric processes.
These include such compounds as ammonia, chlorides, sulfates, bicarbonates,
nitrates, and hydrocarbons. All are essential to the natural environment
in which they serve as fertilizer to the plant kingdom that sustains
all life.
From data of Robinson and Robbins (1968) one can calculate that
about 95 per cent of the estimated nine billion tons of chemical
compounds annually entering earth's atmosphere are derived from
natural sources. Of this amount less than 1 per cent of the nearly
1.7 billion tons of hydrocarbons are derived from human activity;
about one-third of the more than 200 million tons of sulfur compounds
are contributed by man. But he contributes only 1 per cent of nearly
seven billion tons of nitrogen compounds. These data exclude natural
emanations from volcanic regions. Kimble (1966) estimated that 100
million tons of fixed nitrogen alone are annually brought from the
atmosphere to the earth.
For the land area of the United States Junge and Werby (1958) estimate
that 44 million tons of natural chemical compounds are carried down
to the earth each year. In a local drainage basin covering 44,000
square miles of Virginia and North Carolina, Gambell and Fisher
(1966) calculate that the 107 thousand tons of mixed solids (calcium,
magnesium, sodium, sulfate, carbonate, nitrate) dropped from the
air per year equals about one-half the annual load carried by the
local streams in the drainage basin. The airborne salts, moreover,
are enough to account essentially for all the sulfate and nitrate
in those streams.
Hundreds of volcanic eruptions during historical time have contributed
vast amounts of particulate matter and gases into the atmosphere,
in addition to devastation of land areas and damage to large biosystems.
Recorded eruptions for example in the Mediterranean Region, Caribbean
Islands, Central America, East Indies, and other places have accounted
for many thousands of human fatalities, as well as damage to soil
and plant and animal life. From my own calculations three eruptions
alone - Krakatoa in 1883, Mt. Katmai in 1912, and Mt. Hekla in 1947
- have contributed more particulate matter and may have contributed
more combined natural gases to the atmosphere than all of man's
activity. The force of these volcanic eruptions carries fine ash
higher into the atmosphere than man's pollution, and therefore results
in residence times measurable in months or years (instead of days)
and in fallout range in hundreds or thousands of miles (instead
of miles).
Smoke stacks emitting products of the combustion of coal produce
a continuing environmental harassment in populous areas and are
also looked upon as aesthetic intrusion in pristine areas. If these
smoke stacks are judged to be necessary, then heightening of the
vertical column and technologic dust and gas collectors must be
introduced in order to reduce the aggravation of emissions. Also,
waste disposal systems for the ash and liquids thus collected must
be devised.
It has been said in many places that man's combustion of energy
fuels will seriously deplete the oxygen component of the atmosphere.
Measurements show that oxygen makes up about 21 per cent of the
atmosphere and that no significant change has taken place in the
past century. One group (MIT, 1970) calculated that if the world's
reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas were all burned, the amount
of oxygen thus used up would be less than 1/10 of 1 per cent of
the existing reservoir of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it has been calculated
that a significant increase in carbon dioxide has been generated
over that normally generated by nature. For example, carbon dioxide
now makes up about 320 parts per million (by volume) of the atmosphere
and by the year 2000 an about 60 parts-per-million increase could
be generated. Volcanoes also add CO2. Because of the three massive
planetary reservoirs for gases - the biosphere, the atmosphere,
and the hydrosphere - one cannot readily conclude that man's generation
of CO2 will be significant in climatic effect. Unexplained climatic
changes in geologic time have resulted in periodic glacial episodes
(ice ages) on the planet. Less spectacular climatic changes have
occurred over centuries and millennia without being influenced by
man. I frankly doubt that man's effect on the atmosphere is significant
enough to change or speed up the massive natural trends.
It is apparent that natural atmospheric processes can have both
beneficial and harmful effects locally. It is also apparent that
a conservation philosophy should require better control of man's
pollution of the air in response to his desire for an aesthetic
environment and his requirement for reduction of aggravation from
particulate matter or abusive gases. Prevention of adverse climatic
effects appears to be less significant but more research is needed
to confirm this.
Impure Ocean
As the major sink for waste products of earth processes the oceans
have developed their present character over a few billion years.
Rubey (1951) assessed these chemical changes over geologic time.
My own analysis leads me to a conclusion that man's activities have
significantly altered the natural state in some estuaries and near-shore
zones; but the mass effect of man on the chemical and physical character
of the ocean has been negligible.
Nace (1967) estimated that 97.3 per cent of all the earth's water
is contaminated by natural salt, and that the ocean contains 317
million cubic miles of salt water. Durum, et al. (1960) calculated
that 225 million tons of salt are carried to the ocean by U. S.
rivers each year. More than 50 per cent of this total is from natural
sources by the Mississippi River alone. In geologic time salts are
recycled in earth processes, and many ancient geologic formations
that were developed under marine conditions are characterized by
beds of mixed salt compounds.
Marine fish kills reported offshore are frequently cited as a consequence
of man's pollution. Discolored waters ("red tides") and
related fish kills are mentioned in the Bible, in the Iliad, by
Tacitus, and in logs of navigators of the sixteenth century. Brongersma-Sanders
(1957) and Rounsefell and Nelson (1966) have summarized historical
references that document many past events of worldwide occurrence.
Geologists have long been interested in the causes of mass mortality
and attempts to explain some of the remarkable examples of catastrophic
deaths of marine animals, the records of which are preserved in
geologic formations. For example at Lompoc, California, Jordan (1920)
reports that a Miocene (10 million years ago) catastrophe resulted
in death of more than a billion herring, 6 to 8 inches long, over
an area of 4 square miles. Similar massive deaths and burial are
found in many horizons in the geologic record, far back into Paleozoic
time, where the record of the past one-half billion years shows
extinction of many millions of species from earth.
Red tides are caused by a variety of organisms and apparently represent
an unusual coincidence of circumstances involving water temperature,
natural nutrients, and hydrodynamic conditions. In some circumstances
the oxygen concentration exceeds saturation and hence becomes a
natural poison. Some organisms, for example dinoflagellates like
Gynnodinium, are toxic to fish and cause widespread devastation.
Other agents, inorganic in origin that have likewise caused catastrophic
death in the sea include volcanic eruptions, earthquake shock, and
sudden changes in salinity or temperature. Increasing research and
better observations in recent years have brought the mortality phenomenon
to our attention more frequently and are probably responsible for
the widely held but erroneous conclusion that man's pollution is
the prime agent.
In the area of the Mississippi delta, according to St. Amant (1972),
ditches dug into natural marshes have resulted in an increase of
salinity which, coupled with increase in temperature induced by
pipelines, has resulted in an epidemic increase in a fungus known
to have a deleterious effect on oysters. In other areas of the U.
S. coastal zone, waste plumes carrying chemicals can be damaging
to marine life and certain waste waters with wide ranging temperature
can locally effect marine biota. In the Santa Barbara Channel, off
Coal Oil Point, natural tarry substances escaping from the seafloor
have been known certainly for at least hundreds of years but appear
to permit a healthy and rich marine biota nevertheless. On the other
hand, massive catastrophic spills of crude petroleum or its derivatives
are known to have severe immediate effects on some sea life, particularly
seabirds.
Because man's activities can in effect cause severe local damage
to marine life, research should be speeded up to increase our understanding
of causes and effect. In some places harvesting by man would appear
to have even greater effect on certain species than natural or human
pollution. Proper assessment of research and systematic observational
data can lead to regulatory controls that would prevent irreparable
damage. A conservation philosophy demands this information in order
to exercise proper controls.
Toxic Heavy Metals
The so-called toxic metals like mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, selenium,
arsenic, nickel, chromium, and others are widely distributed in
nature. They occur as chemical components of minerals, ores, soils,
rocks, and waters and are natural trace components of the biosystem.
Among them mercury is probably the most mobile (Pecora, et al.,
1970)
The mercury content of the atmosphere and the ocean apparently
is derived primarily from degassing the earth's crust (Weiss, et
al., 1971). This process probably injects 10 to ion times as much
mercury into the planetary atmosphere as all man's industry combined,
including chloralkali plants, fossil fuel combustion plants, cement
plants, and smelters. The rate of escape of mercury from such geological
arenas as the geothermal area of Yellowstone National Park, volcanic
centers, and mineralized provinces is measurable and noteworthy.
The ocean and seabed is the long-term sink for much of the mercury
involved in successive exhalations and fallout.
In seawater the mercury content ranges widely but is estimated
to average 0.15 to 0.25 parts per billion, exclusive of the amount
held in seabed sediments. In recent decades annual world production
of newly mined mercury falls in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 metric
tons. All the mercury mined by man throughout history would total
less than 0.001 per cent of that contained in ocean water. Mercury,
in the natural environment, has been a persistent trace element
throughout geologic time. Its toxicity, however, is a function of
its chemical state and ingestion history.
Organic mercury compounds are much more troublesome than inorganic
compounds, because they are more readily absorbed in the life chain.
At Minamata Bay, Japan, human mercury poisoning developed from eating
of fish and shellfish contaminated by effluent from a chemical plant
that used mercury as a catalyst. Use of mercury compounds as agricultural
pesticides have enlarged the sphere of toxic influence in the biosphere.
Recent press reports on the discovery of mercury in many parts
of the environment have created great apprehension and resulted
in decrease in the public market for certain commercial fish. New
information discloses comparable mercury contents in preserved fish
caught many decades and centuries ago, lending credence to the conclusion
that mercury ingestion by fish is not primarily from recent marine
contamination.
Inasmuch as trace metals in toxic amounts place life and health
in jeopardy, government controls in use and disposal of wastes containing
them are warranted. However, conservative attitudes should prevail
until present quality standards are carefully evaluated against
experience and records of the past. In the light of knowledge of
the ocean's mercury balance, I am impelled to state that the occasional
practice of eating tuna fish sandwiches or fish steaks need not
be modified and that apprehension is not justified.
Changes in the Landscape
Nature has made many billions of scars on the surface of the land
through normal geologic processes. Dry gulches, badlands, landfalls,
alluvial washes, terraces are among many landforms familiar to the
geologist.
Meteor Crater in Arizona is a natural circular feature attractive
to many tourists, as is a large open pit near Bingham Canyon, Utah,
created by man to recover billions of pounds of copper for industry.
Natural terrain underlain by limestone or salt formations display
sinks and cave-ins, as do terrains underlain by underground mines.
Roads and highways lace the country as do stream courses in drainage
basins. Lands are necessarily cleared for airports, transmission
lines, railroads, and pipelines.
Some look upon any intrusion of the pristine wilderness by man's
construction to be a desecration of nature. The technical development
that has set man's development on earth apart from the Test of the
animal world has indeed made a profound impact on the surface of
this planet in many places. In order to sustain man on earth landscape
tradeoffs have been a necessary consequence. A burgeoning population
requires more natural resources each decade. Even if zero population
growth is attainable mankind's demand for resources is staggering.
Some estimate that cumulative demand will triple or more by the
year 2000.
The mature technical society of the United States has provided
50 to 100 times the worldly goods of its frontier counterpart. Today
one penny's worth of gasoline provides the work of 25 men. Three
people now provide the basic food for 100. Like it or not, this
has been the accepted and preferred path of affluent consumers and
skillful technology.
Appalachia is studded with remnants of poorly practiced open-pit
coal mines that operated without regulatory controls. For less than
2 per cent of the value of the coal marketed, most of these abandoned
sites might have been acceptably restored. Today the cost would
reach hundreds of millions of dollars. On public lands in the western
states the Department of the Interior imposes restoration and reclamation
requirements as part of the resource recovery mining system and
part of the cost of operation. All leasing of public lands carry
this contractual requirement.
A mature nation like the United States so dependent upon its natural
resources cannot turn off its economic pattern of development without
a major impact on its welfare and way of life. Nor can this nation
continue its economic development without more regard for the environmental
impact of its industry. The public interest is a multifaceted structure
requiring the full attention and prudence of government.
Under consideration in Congress is a major reorganization plan
whereby a proposed Department of Natural Resources can serve as
a focal point for national policy in this area. Along with management
responsibilities for land, water, wildlife, and energy the new department
would combine research capability in total science of the earth.
There is no better way to develop management judgements about nature
than with science and technology as handmaidens.
Conclusion
Over the past decade, increasing public concern over altera-tion
and degradation of the human environment has focused serious attention
on indiscriminate industrial development. Rec-ognizing that alternation
of the environment is not necessarily hazardous to man and his associates
in the biosystem, environ-mental change, nevertheless, is being
subjected to intensive re-view and critical analysis. Some vocal
and active extremists de-mand full halt to all further economic
development. Others require stipulations that all industrial activity,
present and future, absorb substantial costs to avoid any further
pollutants to air, land, and water, and to initiate specific and
costly recovery technology to enhance the environment or offset
unacceptable practice. These concerns and demands are generating
new laws and regulations aimed at curbs and controls that have signifi-cant
impact on our national resource base.
Inadequate data persist in the arena of assessment and decision
making. Consumers demand a continuing supply of energy and resource
products on one hand, and demand maximum pollution protection on
the other. Scientists and engineers have become victims of their
own success. They have provided what the people wanted in a frame
of lowest cost requiring great innovations in a maturing society
and they now must respond in a short time frame to continue productivity
without adding wastes to the environment.
Geologic science demonstrates that nature is a massive polluter
of the environment. In comparison, man's activity is of little consequence
on a planetary scale in some issues, but may be of serious consequence
in a local context. Conservation ethic requires a better understanding
of the natural base line before rigorous actions are taken out of
apprehension and ignorance. Science and research are needed more
than ever to provide guidance to courses of national action aimed
at fulfilling human needs. As the most intelligent species on earth,
man can certainly provide for himself and yet prudently protect
the total ecosystem from unnecessary and unacceptable degradation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Brongersma-Sanders, M. 1957. Mass mortality in the sea, Treatise
on marine ecology and paleoecology. Geol. Soc. America Mem., 67:
941-1010.
Durum, W. H., Heidel, S. G., and Tison, L. J. 1960. World-wide
runoff of dissolved solids. Internat. Assoc. Sci. Hydrol., 51:618-28.
Ellsaesser, H. W. 1971. Air pollution: Our ecological alarm and
blessing in disguise. Am. Geophys. Union Trans., 52(3):92-100.
Gambell, A. W. and Fisher, D. W. 1966. Chemical composition of
rainfall - eastern North Carolina and Southern Virginia. U. S. Geol.
Survey Water-Supply Paper, 1535-K:1-41.
Jordan, D. S. 1920. A Miocene catastrophe, Natural history. Jour.
Am. Mus. Nat. History, 20:18-22.
Junge, C. E. and Werby, R. T. 1958. The concentration of chloride,
sodium, potassium, calcium, and sulfate in rain water over the United
States. Jour. Meteorology, 15(5):417-25
Kimble, G. H. T. 1966. On doing nothing much about the weather.
Presented Engineering-Science Centennial Convocation, Lafayette
College, Easton, Pa.
Leopold, L. B., Emmett, W. W., and Myrick, R. M. 1966. Channel
and hillslope processes in a semiarid area, New Mexico (Erosion
and sedimentation in a semiarid environment). U. S. Geol. Survey
Prof. Paper 352-G.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1970. Man's impact on the
global environment: Report on the study of critical environmental
problems. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press.
Nace, R. L. 1967. Are we running out of water? U. S. Geol. Survey
Circ. 536:1-7.
Pecora, W. T., and others. 1970. Mercury in the environment. U.
S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 713:1-67.
Robinson, Elmer and Robbins, R. C. 1968. Where does it all go?
Stanford Research Inst. Jour., 23:4-8.
Rounsefell, G. A. and Nelson, W. R. 1966. Red-tide research summarized
to 1964, including an annotated bibliography. U. S. Fish Wildl.
Spec. Sci. Rept. 535:1-85.
Rubey, W. W. 1951. Geologic history of sea water. Geol. Soc. America
Bul. 62(9):1111-47
St. Amant, L. S. 1972 (in press). Biological effects of petroleum
exploration and production in coastal Louisiana. Santa Barbara Oil
Symposium of 1970. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara.
Weiss, H. V., Koide, Minoru, and Goldberg, E. D. 1971. Mercury
in a Greenland ice sheet; evidence of recent input by man. Science,
174:692-94.
Introducing: William T. Pecora
In his 1961 Lecture at the University of California, Horace M. Albright
made the following evaluation: "I regard the Geological Survey
as one of the greatest agencies ever created. It has sometimes been
called the 'mother of bureaus.' It is today an outstanding conservation
agency." Thus it is fitting that the 1972 Albright Lecturer
in Conservation is a former director of the U. S. Geological Survey.
William T. Pecora is a native of New Jersey. He received the B.S.
in geology from Princeton University in 1933 and the Ph.D. from
Harvard University in 1940. For him, these were years of more than
study, for in 1933 he was the U. S. intercollegiate fencing champion
and in 1936 he was a member of the U. S. Olympic Team. The quick
perception and instant reflexes of those years continue to stand
him in good stead in his present post as one of the top public officials
in the environmental field.
In 1939 he accepted appointment as geologist in the U. S. Geological
Survey. His career there developed around field and laboratory investigations
throughout North and South America related to nickel deposits, mica
deposits, rare mineral deposits, phosphate mineralogy, and geochemistry
and petrology. From 1957 to 1961 he served as Chief, Branch of Geochemistry
and Petrology. He then served as Research Geologist and, during
1964 and 1965, as Chief Geologist. In September, 1965, Dr. Pecora
was appointed as Director of the Geological Survey and in 1969 be
was reappointed to this position.
In May of 1971 he was appointed as Under Secretary, Department
of the Interior. As an outstanding research scientist and administrator
who has come up through all the steps of the federal system, he
has a unique opportunity to contribute to the development and implementation
of environmental policy at the federal level. In this he is guided
by his own geologic base line and broad environmental understanding.
His honors have been as numerous as the committees on which he
serves. He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Science degree from
Franklin & Marshall College in 1969 and the honorary Doctor
of Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1970. He received
the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of Interior in
1968 and the Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1969. He is a member
of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In this time of high public concern with environmental matters,
Dr. Pecora has served the nation well by bringing his geologist's
sense of time and environment to bear on the wide range of interrelated
problems we face.
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