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SEG纪念美国最重视地球物理教育的 Robert (Bob) E. Sherif教授
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他不是院士，但是他很伟大
一辈子奉献于勘探地球物理事业
他的教科书和地球物理百科全书永远照亮我们的前方
毛宁波 2015年1月16日 中国
The passing of a giant — Remembering Robert (Bob) E. Sherif
http://library.seg.org/doi/full/10.1190/tle34010110.1
Abstract：SEG and geophysics lost one of its strongest researchers, teachers, authors, and program supporters when Bob Sheriff died 19 November 2014 at his home in Missouri City, Texas.
Read More: http://library.seg.org/doi/full/10.1190/tle34010110.1
Robert (Bob) E. Sheriff was born in Mansfield, Ohio, on 19 April 1922 to the Reverend Charles F. Sheriff, a Lutheran minister, and Marjorie R. Norton Sheriff. The eldest of two children, Bob was raised in Mansfield and graduated from Wittenberg College in 1943 with a B.S. in chemistry before attending Ohio State University for graduate work. In 1943, Bob was recruited for the famous World War II Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and worked there until the end of the war on uranium isotope separation. In Oak Ridge, he met Margaret M. Sites, another Manhattan Project employee, and they married on 13 October 1945. In 1949, Bob fulfilled his promise to take Margaret to Europe. After traveling on a passenger steamship from New York to England, they bicycled around England and toured from France to Italy. This six-week tour was the first of the couple's many international travels — and international travel in 1949 was rare indeed!
Bob received an M.S. in physics 1947 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1950 from Ohio State. He then accepted an offer from Standard of California (Chevron) to work in its new geophysical research laboratory in southern California. Bob worked for Chevron in a variety of geophysical and managerial positions for the next 25 years, including managing geophysical crews and drilling activity in South America and Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. From home base in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and then Perth, Western Australia, and with six young children in tow, Bob and Margaret traveled around the world three times on extended home-leave trips before transferring back to the United States in 1966.
After retiring from Chevron in 1975, Bob served five years as senior vice president of development with Seiscom-Delta Corporation before joining the faculty at the University of Houston (UH) as a fully tenured professor of geophysics. His main interests were seismic detailing of reservoirs, 3D seismic interpretation, and seismic stratigraphy. Bob expanded his teaching activity with many U. S. and international geophysical one- to two-week short courses, which took Bob and Margaret all over the world teaching from the 1980s through the 2000s. In 1988, Bob took a sabbatical from UH and spent a semester teaching at Charles University in Prague, and in 1993, he spent a semester teaching at Curtin University in Western Australia. In 2003, Bob retired from UH as Professor Emeritus, having taught geophysics for more than 23 years. Even in retirement, however, he remained involved and active for many years with the UH geoscience department.
Bob and Margaret took an interest in the bright young minds they met overseas, and they endowed several SEG scholarships for international students who wish to continue their studies in geophysics at UH. Believing strongly in the value of education, Bob and Margaret established several endowments for the UH geoscience department: the Margaret S. and Robert E. Sheriff Endowed Faculty Chair in Applied Seismology, the Margaret S. Sheriff College Professorship in Geophysics Endowment, the Robert E. Sheriff College Professorship in Sequence Stratigraphy Endowment, and the Robert and Margaret Sheriff Endowment in Applied Geophysics. Bob thoroughly enjoyed teaching and had faith in education as the driver in human progress. One of his greatest strengths was his ability to explain complex subjects clearly and directly.
Bob is widely known and respected for his numerous publications. He authored and coauthored several geophysical textbooks, many still in print today. Bob was one of the originators of the geophysics subdiscipline attributes, coauthoring with M. Turhan Taner and Fulton Koehler what some consider the seminal article in the field, “Complex seismic trace analysis,” which appeared in the June 1979 issue of Geophysics (Volume 44, Number 6).
He was an active member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE), and the Geophysical Society of Houston (GSH). He was first vice president of SEG in 1972–73 and served on numerous SEG committees through the years. Bob continued to attend SEG and GSH lectures, short courses, and special-interest meetings long after he retired.
Bob is best known for writing the comprehensive geophysical reference book Encyclopedic Dictionary of Exploration Geophysics. This work was published in four editions, in 1973, 1984, 1991, and 2002; the last of these was published with a new title, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Geophysics, reflecting its broader scope. This reference book originated as a “Glossary of terms used in exploration geophysics,” first published in Geophysics in 1968 and updated in the journal the following year.
In 1969, Bob received the prestigious SEG Virgil Kauffman Medal for this publication. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Geophysics, fourth edition, gained a new dimension in 2012 when its contents provided the seed for the launch of the SEG Wiki, sustained with an SEG Foundation gift from Apache Corporation. In addition, Bob and Lloyd P. Geldart coauthored the 2004 SEG book Problems in Exploration Seismology and their Solutions.
Serving on the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) program committee on behalf of SEG for many years, Bob was instrumental in developing the OTC into a valuable geophysics forum.
Bob served as SEG's Distinguished Lecturer in 1977 and was awarded Honorary Membership in the Society in 1980. He was honored by SEG again in 1998 with the Society's highest award — the Maurice Ewing Award — for his lifetime achievements in geophysics. In 2006, SEG members voted Bob's 1973 dictionary as the top geophysics book ever published for the industry; a copy of one edition or another can be found in nearly every working exploration office. Bob also gained recognition for his considerable achievements from many industry and education groups aside from SEG.
Along with Bob's enjoyment of writing and teaching, he also had a passion for adventure and travel. With a corresponding passion, Margaret proved to be the perfect companion. In their extensive travels together, they visited nearly 100 countries in all parts of the world. In 1996, they fulfilled a lifelong goal to visit the seventh continent, Antarctica. Bob's delight in travel never diminished, and he and Margaret were still taking overseas trips well into their eighties.
Bob had an equal passion for music and art. He had a prodigious self-education in history, great books, geography, music, and the arts. He was a lifelong opera enthusiast and attended dozens of concerts, programs, and museum exhibits each year. Bob relaxed by working in his yard, and he thoroughly enjoyed long walks, especially with children and grandchildren.
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-339326-859933.html
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