This is Throwback Thursday #240. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected]. Thanks!
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To celebrate Veterans Day, we are doing something different this week... How about a Throwback Monday and a Mazon Thursday? Happy Veterans Day! And definitely, thank you for your service!
In 2013, Paul Mayer, Collections Manager of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum, shared an interesting post titled "Brachiopods and WWII." In it, Paul highlighted Dr. Sharat Kumar Roy, a Field Museum curator who served during World War II.
Brachiopods are interesting marine animals. They are filter feeders that superficially resemble clams (bivalve molluscs), however they are very different and belong to a completely separate taxonomic phylum. There are more than 12,000 species of Brachiopods known, mostly in the fossil record, as they were much more diverse during the Paleozoic. They suffered great loses during the Permian Mass Extinction. From Wikipedia...
Brachiopods live only in the sea, and most species avoid locations with strong currents or waves. The larvae of articulate species settle in quickly and form dense populations in well-defined areas while the larvae of inarticulate species swim for up to a month and have wide ranges. Brachiopods now live mainly in cold water and low light. Fish and crustaceans seem to find brachiopod flesh distasteful and seldom attack them. Among brachiopods, only the lingulids (Lingula sp.[4]) have been fished commercially, on a very small scale. One brachiopod species (Coptothyrus adamsi) may be a measure of environmental conditions around an oil terminal being built in Russia on the shore of the Sea of Japan. The word "brachiopod" is formed from the Ancient Greek words brachion ("arm") and podos ("foot"). They are often known as "lamp shells", since the curved shells of the class Terebratulida resemble pottery oil-lamps.
© The Field Museum, GEO79682. Dr. Sharat K. Roy stands over the Mapleton meteorite Geology specimen ME2286.
Dr. Sharat Kumar Roy (1898-1962) was an American geologist of Indian origin. He was a Curator of Fossil Invertebrates of the Chicago Natural History Museum, later renamed to the Field Museum of Natural History from 1925 until 1946, when he was made Chief Curator of the Geology Department, a position he held until 1962. He served in WWII as a captain in the U.S. Army. He was stationed in India and Burma. He took his love of fossils with him and was able to amass a large collection of Permian brachiopods from the Salt Range near the India – Pakistan border, in Punjab, India.
In 1941 the Fossil Invertebrate Section at the Field Museum was making plans for a new and larger display but with the start of World War II these plans were postponed. The Curator of Fossil Invertebrates, Dr. Sharat Roy, served with the U.S. Army as a captain in the India-Burma Theatre of war. Near the end of the war he was able to take a month long leave and collect fossils (including a large collection of Permian brachiopods) and other geologic specimens from the Salt Range in what was then Punjab, India, but today is part of Pakistan. The Salt Range is named after the rich salt deposits that are close to 500 meters (1600 feet) thick, but is also famous (at least among geologists) for Permian brachiopods.
© The Field Museum, Roy studing productid brachiopods from India.
Concave brachial valve of a Permian productid brachiopod, Waagenoconcha sp. (Photo by P.S. Mayer).
Dr. Roy passed away on April 17th, 1962. At that time, he was Chief Curator of the Geology Department at the Field Museum. A memorial appeared in the May edition of the Field Museum bulletin.
Sharat K. Roy
(1898-1962)
Dr. Sharat Kumar Roy. Chief Curator of the Department of Geology, whose death occurred on April 17th. was a distinguished scientist of outstanding ability and achievement.
Dr. Roy was born in India in 1898, and attended the University of Calcutta and the University of London. He came to the United States in 1920 and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1922. He received the degrees of Master of Science in 1924 from the University of Illinois and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1941.
He began his professional career in the Department of Geology of the New York State Museum in Albany, and joined the staff of Chicago Xatural History Museum in 1925 as an Assistant Curator in the Department of Geology. He has served continuously with the Museum since that time, becoming Chief Curator of his department in 1947.
Dr. Roy served in the British-Indian Army during World War I. In World War II he received a commission as Captain in the United States Army Air Forces and was discharged with the rank of Major in July, 1946.
In addition to many collecting trips in various parts of the United States, Dr. Roy was a member of the Second Rawson-MacMillan Subarctic Expedition of Field Museum in 1927-28; and he collected ores, lithological specimens and Paleozoic fossils in Newfoundland the following year. In 1945, on leave from the United States Army, he collected Permian fossils in mines in eastern India and in the Salt Range of northern India.
From 1953 to 1961 Dr. Roy conducted six field trips to Central America to study the volcanos of that region. In 1957-58 he spent one year in Europe and India under a National Science Foundation grant, engaged in research and consultation on stony meteorites, concentrating on those containing rounded bodies called chondrules.
He has published more than 30 scientific papers in the fields of invertebrate paleontology, meteoritics and volcanology, and was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society as well as a member of numerous professional societies.
In recognition of his exploratory geological work in the Arctic, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, in 1944. honored him by designating one of the mountain peaks on Baffin Island as "Mount Sharat."
With Dr. Roy's death the Museum staff has lost a colleague of unassuming and gentle temperament. He will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him.
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