Mark R. Boardman, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geology and Environmental Earth Science, Miami University
“Let your data protect your story, don’t let your story protect your data.” Conrad Neumann, late 1970s.
Conrad taught me that scientific thinking required understanding the origins of paradigms and then being read to challenge paradigms. Thinking was a process steeped in multiple working hypotheses, of respectfully and simultaneously holding potentially conflicting snapshots of observations. To him, I attribute my entrance to think in snapshots of natural science observations blended into a broader picture of how processes fit together. He was an artist who could represent ideas as images, images that told a story, stories that based on observation. Observation first, then the story.
“All wind-up, no pitch” Conrad Neumann, ≈ _1974 while on deck of R/V Calanus.
It was at penetrating critique of the first full draft of my master’s thesis. We were on the R/V Calanus in the Bight of Abaco, and Conrad had finished looking at the first several pages of my master’s thesis. He asked me to join him on deck and shared his written comments with me, comments which included the “wind-up / pitch” statement. “Tell the story.” he was saying. Tell the story boldly and clearly. I was stunned and shaken, but awed and thankful, for his thoughtful and honest appraisal delivered with compassion. The “wind-up / pitch” critique and the “data protect your story” lesson reinforced each other and have guided my professional career. Conrad’s teaching and mentorship was an example of these ideas. His cartoons and humorous remembrances told pointed stories with wonderful contextual wind-up.
“Peripatetic” Reviewer’s summary word (for our “periplatform” proposal), ≈ _1976.
I think I was Conrad’s first graduate student at U.N.C. I arrived in 1973 after a wonderful, but tumultuous four years at Princeton and a liberating year-long break shrugging off maternal enthusiasm for me to be medical doctor or vet or something similarly respectable, rather than teaching SCUBA. I knew that I wanted to live my life doing what I loved – physically exploring natural phenomena (sun and fun in remote tropical areas), and Conrad provided a home for, and an example of this possibility. Conrad did what he thought was fun and interesting. His research and thinking were eclectic and, indeed, “peripatetic” which resonated with me, both professionally and personally. I still recall an introductory oceanography lecture that began with a few lines on the blackboard and ended with a 40’ x 6’ colored-chalk mural of the topic! It was breathtaking.
Indeed, my several years with Conrad at UNC were amazingly stimulating and rewarding. When I joined Conrad, Bill Halford was his lab assistant (brought from Miami) and was performing size analyses of sediment samples, and Jane Neumann was his administrative chief of staff and researcher (mollusc identification) at the lab as well as the chief homemaker for their children. I remember my exciting first days of discussions with Conrad helping to ease me into their group, probing what I knew (so little), and what interested me (so much). Sieving, settling, decanting, and weighing gave me plenty of time to think and enjoy this new chapter.
Soon, Al Hine and Hank Mullins joined Conrad (and me) followed by Jude Wilbur and Stan Locker. Together we were GROG (Geological Research in Oceanography Group – Conrad’s appellation). We were a diverse group that assembled around Conrad. The team and teamwork I experienced, led by Conrad, were inspirational, providing emotional and intellectual strength and support. It got better and better – and then we all moved on. Hank was the first Ph.D. to graduate and went to Moss Landing in California, Al was his first post-doc and went to Univ. of South Florida, and I (perhaps the most venturesome) took a job in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
I never was able to recreate anything like it, but the diversity of interests and group enthusiasm, and sharing disparate ideas and in a safe, intellectual environment is a credit to Conrad, always open to new ideas and always supportive. Because he was so very funny, amazingly creative, and seemed to often be exposed to obvious predicaments, Conrad’s scientific perception was sometimes missed. His humor disarmed many, but it provoked a wonderful comfort zone for me.
The experiences I shared with him (and GROG) while a graduate student were mostly symposia and research cruises on the research vessels Calanus, Cape Hatteras, and the Eastward. Somehow we occasionally found ourselves in stupidly dangerous situations, included being shot at (scared away) from studying beach rock in St. Croix, being boarded by the “Bahamian Navy” (i.e. pirates) in Northwest Providence Channel, and talking (joking) our way out of a sleazy bar somewhere. These “adventures” were part of his life’s adventures and my life is richer for them.
I remained in relatively close contact with Conrad when I returned from Brasil three years after my graduation. We wrote a grant together, shared supervision of several masters students, and recommended each other to be on committees and symposia such as an NSF sponsored educators symposium (Texas), a GSA research symposium on sea level (Bermuda), and most recently a Geology of the Bahamas symposium (San Salvador, BA). Al, Hank and I were reunited with Conrad at his retirement.
Conrad Neumann has had an enormous influence on my life and, I think, on the lives of many carbonate researchers. I am forever grateful that I was fortunate enough to share part of his life. He will be my mentor forever.
Steven K. Boss, PhD, Professor of Environmental Dynamics & Sustainability, Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas
Conrad was my mentor, friend, and advocate while I was at UNC (1989-1994). He gave me advice and counsel at important moments and inspiration/motivation when needed. I remember one of his “Conradisms” that served me well more than once at difficult times: “The brush is always thickest at the edge of the woods, and the only way out is through”. He made it possible for me to pursue the career I have and gave me confidence that I was worthy of it. I am in my 24th year at the University of Arkansas. My career has been quite different than I would have imagined – and probably than Conrad would have imagined. But it’s been an interesting career that has never been dull and I am grateful that Conrad was there to guide me and assist when it was most necessary. I miss him. A giant man with a bigger smile and those inquisitive, friendly eyes. He was a friend to everyone and a stranger to no one. He remains part of me and the professor I became. What a legacy he left. I was lucky to know him, work with him, and I am proud he was my advisor. To all at UNC and MASC, know that I am grateful for the opportunities you created and that I cherish the memories of my time in Venable Hall. You are all missed.
Eleanor Camann, PhD,
Professor of Geology
Red Rocks Community College
13300 West Sixth Avenue; CB 20
Lakewood, CO 80228
I was saddened to hear of the passing of a friend and mentor, Conrad Neumann. I was Conrad’s TA for his Geological Oceanography class at UNC-Chapel Hill (where my main job was to keep things organized) and he was a member of my dissertation committee. More importantly, he was a friend who cared about me as a person as much or more than he did about me as a student. His colorful stories were infamous with students and his classic “cartoon” drawings of oceanographic processes (as well as those on invitations to parties and his Christmas letters) were unique. I refer to him every semester when using his ominous quote about coastal development: “If you can see the sea, the sea can see you”. I share his passive margin cartoon (see below) when I teach oceanography. He donated more than two bookshelf rows of books about coastal geology to me when I graduated, as well as a big chunk of his collection of slides of Shackleford Banks. He is the person who taught me about Marie Tharp, who has become one of my heroes and someone I always talk about when I teach Plate Tectonics. I will never forget the memorable scientific name of the slipper shell (Crepidula fornicata) due to his faux reaction on a field trip. And he paid me a great compliment about the amount of detail in my dissertation research by saying “if as much as a blade of grass moves out on that island, Ellie can tell you about it.” I am ashamed that I fell out of touch these last few years, other than through his Facebook page (which he rarely used). This is a real loss to the oceanographic community and to me, personally.
Paul Hearty, PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder 1987
I met Conrad in Tahiti in 1985 at the 5th International Coral Reef Congress at my first PhD conference when he presented his now highly recognized coral reef behavior “keep up, catch up, give up” paper (Neumann & Macintyre, 1985 – appended below) and we remained friends, colleagues, collaborators, and sometimes contentious rivals ever since. Special for us, our family, my four siblings and I spent our parents 50th wedding anniversary at Conrad’s home at Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard. We’ve worked together on several field trips and conferences around the Bahamas along with a couple of his former students Bret Jarrett and Blair Tormey. We’ve collectively written numerous papers and conference abstracts that are posted below. So, after 34 years of friendship, I’ll miss him, but when I think of him, I smile…I suppose it was his time.
Albert (Al) C. Hine, PhD, Professor Emeritus, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida
I first met Conrad at an AMQUA meeting in Miami in 1972 where he presented his now infamous Bermuda sea level curve. I was a new PhD grad student interested in applying sediment transport principles to the carbonate world as I had done so in siliciclastic coastal systems for my MS. My major advisor was Miles O. Hayes, and he suggested that if I were to study the dynamics of the famous Bahamian ooid sand shoals, I needed a carbonate person on my committee. Miles and Conrad were contemporaries (both ~39 years of age at the time) and had developed a friendship at a meeting held in Bermuda—two amazingly different individuals, but both equally gifted. That must have been an interesting first meeting for sure. Based on that friendship, Miles suggested that I invite Conrad to be on my committee. So, at a bar at that AMQUA meeting, I introduced myself and explained to Conrad what my interests were and asked him to please be on my committee. He immediately said yes, and we started what turned out to be a lifelong relationship from PhD committee member/grad student, post-doctoral advisor/post doc, career mentor/early career faculty member, to finally two life long colleagues/friends. That conversation at that bar in Miami was a “fork in the road” for me, and as Yogi allegedly has proclaimed, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it”. I took it and it changed my life.
Conrad and I had many experiences together over the years—field trips (e.g., North Carolina, Florida, Bahamas, Heculaneum, Sicily, Jamaica), research cruises (e.g., Bahamas, Nicaraguan Rise, Florida Keys, west Florida shelf), professional meetings (Capri, most big US cities), sharing grad student committees, co-authoring publications, co-teaching courses, visiting bars in strange places (won’t go there), taking long road trips to meet research vessels, and a zillion ad hoc conversations in hallways, restaurants, on the decks of research vessels, and many other places and settings.
He was the most creative, funny, imaginative, clairvoyant, and expressive person I have ever known. One analogy I have always carried around in my head is that of a man sharpening an iron tool on an 18th century rotating stone grinder producing showers of sparks. The sharped tool was his creative mind and the sparks were ideas that flew out in all directions, uncontrolled, some brighter and travelling further than others. Each spark could have been a new proposal, publication or the main idea behind a student’s thesis or dissertation. Later in his life those sparks became his poems. But, it was up to those of us around him to grab one of those sparks and keep it burning. I know I grabbed a number of them. Many of these sparks ended up in his brilliant cartoons–a treasure for the ages.
Finally, in addition to his humor, optimism, and electric presence was the serious advice that he passed on–sometimes almost unnoticed. While driving around Jamaica in a rental car made in Russia (that was interesting), he and I passed over the 7,000 ft Blue Mountains at the east end of that island on gravel roads. We saw where the world famous Blue Mountain coffee is grown on slopes so steep one had to wonder how the beans could possibly have been harvested. The scenery was beyond description. He turned to me and simply said, “it is important to have adventures”.
I hope he is having adventures now.
Lynton Land, PhD, Professor Emeritus and E. Allday Centennial Chair in Subsurface Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas, Austin
I wanted to study carbonates and planned to pursue a dissertation on the central Appalachian Cambrian Conococheague Formation under Francis Pettijohn at Johns Hopkins, where I got my BA and MA. It would likely have been a disaster because soon after I would have finished, Shell released their data on Bahamian and Persian Gulf tidal flats and I probably wouldn’t have figured out that the tops of the Conococheague’s shoaling-upward cycles were tidal flats. One day Dave Raup took me aside and told me I should do my PhD elsewhere, that Hopkins had provided all they could offer. He gave me the name of a guy at Lehigh, Keith Chave, and I was accepted. Keith did a lot for me, like introducing me to Bob Garrels, Al Fisher and Dick Holland. He dragged me all over the Caribbean where I measured pH and he drank gin. He also introduced me to Tom Goreau. I became Tom’s “diving geologist” and met my wife, Judith Lang, in Jamaica.
Keith’s other graduate student, Conrad, was completing his dissertation on Harrington Sound, Bermuda, and teaching oceanography. Conrad was the center of a social group of students and we would all convene in his office for lunch and play whist. Conrad and Jane often invited me to their house for dinner, and the stories flowed! I remember Conrad explaining that Jane woke him one night and said she thought someone was in the house. He said he grabbed a lamp as a weapon and crept into the living room, only to stop and envision how a prowler would react to a naked man wielding a lamp. On reflection, he never explained how he managed the cord so one has to wonder about the validity of the story. But everybody who knew Conrad can imagine him reciting and embellishing that story.
Conrad joined the Rosenstiel School in Miami and got a NSF grant to study lime mud in the Bight of Abaco, Bahamas. He invited me to accompany him on many cruises, beginning in 1966. A “cartoon history” of two early cruises is reproduced elsewhere. We decided to find out how much aragonite mud was contributed by calcareous algae, so once the boat was anchored I would toss a 1/4 m2 frame overboard and jump in after it wearing a SCUBA tank. Several frames were counted and some of the algae collected to determine how much aragonite they produced. When we added it all up it was clear that the algae produced a lot more mud than was on the bank. But Conrad didn’t like our technique, so we had to do it all over again by collecting all the algae in the frame. After another year, the “new” method yielded exactly the same conclusion.
The writing seemed to take forever, so every few weeks I would stick a Halimeda or Penicillus in an envelope and send it to Conrad. One day I got an envelope back with a small package in it. It was Goody’s headache powder, Conrad’s way of telling me to “go take a powder.” Published in 1975, the research earned us the “Outstanding Paper” award in the Journal of Sedimentary Petrology.
Conrad’s humor is legendary, and was occasionally directed at himself. He told of an early meeting at NSF, soon after he was appointed, where he was unaccustomedly wearing a coat and tie, undoubtedly chosen by Jane. At the end of the meeting he firmly closed his briefcase with a snap and tried to stand up, only to discover his tie was trapped in the briefcase. I can still laugh at the vision of him demonstrating his predicament.
We kept in touch over subsequent decades and attended many meetings and field trips together. One time I was driving south toward an Alabama meeting and Conrad was navigating with a map on which the roads were either black or red, long before GPS existed. I came to a fork in the road and asked which way to go. Conrad grabbed the map and advised “take the red road.”
I always looked forward to Conrad’s latest geology/ oceanography cartoon and will miss the Neumann Christmas Card. Conrad was responsible for many intellectual advances in carbonate sedimentology. But I’d be willing to bet his greatest contribution was his undergraduate teaching. I suspect there are many of his students who now have a better understanding how the oceans and planet work and how scientific investigation is fun, and contributes to humanity’s well-being.
Noel James, PhD, Professor, Dept of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queens University
I first met Conrad in Miami soon after coming to work at the CSL in those halcyon days when we were all feverishly discovering reefs and trying to understand how the multifarious system really worked. What brought us together was the use of submersibles to see what was going on in the deep. The other link was art. The first time I saw his sketch of the lithoherms I realized that this was not some cartoon but a visual statement of understanding. His rendering of not just objects but concepts in his art was I think what set him apart from the rest of us. I still use some of his images today in my lectures and the students immediately grasp the difficult concepts that he portrayed with such simplicity. He is sorely missed, and the legacy of this astute scientist and gentle man with a marvelous sense of humor will live on in his timeless sketches.
Bret Jarrett, PhD, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of the Coastal Environment, Coastal Carolina University
As a naïve graduate student entering the world of marine geology, I could not have been more fortunate to have the mentorship of Conrad Neumann, one of the leaders and pioneers in the field of carbonate geology. I am sure that anyone who ever met Conrad, even for just an introduction, remembers that encounter. This is because of his unique presence, wit, charm, humor, creativity, zest for life, and passion for communicating to others the wealth of earth secrets hidden in the study of marine sediments.
As a graduate advisor, Conrad was the big picture idea man, one who always saw the forest for the trees. While he was always available to provide direction to his students, he did not micro-manage the individual student projects with daily tasks, recipes, and deadlines. Instead, Conrad gave leeway for students to expand on initial ideas, be creative in their own approaches, and bring new insights to the project through independent field/lab work, and always expecting scholarly review of the requisite literature and ongoing discussions with fellow graduate students and experts in the field of carbonate geology. While my individual thesis directed my daily attention into the focused world of petrography, carbonate cement histories, and diagenesis, Conrad always reminded me of the larger story, and how this individual project fits in to the better understanding of the makeup and responses of carbonate platforms to sea-level and climate change. With his approach to mentorship, I gained invaluable insight into how the field of science progresses and the artistry seen in nature. As important, through Conrad’s instruction and captivating stories in the classroom, lab, and on fieldtrips, I truly gained a zeal and love for the world of carbonates. Conrad was an excellent advisor, who sincerely wanted to instill his passion and experience for marine geology to his students.
It should be recognized that Conrad was an exceptional instructor for both undergraduate and graduate classes. I know that he took pride in this, and that he enjoyed his teaching responsibilities. Like no other I have seen, Conrad engaged and captured student attention, through his unique wit, humor, dynamic (sometimes schizophrenic) presentation, social graces, and wealth of stories that accompanied his slideshows each day. Conrad was able to connect with students by bringing marine science subject matter to life with endless real world examples from his experiences, creative, hand-drawn handouts, and his incredible blackboard artistry. I can say that I always looked forward to Conrad’s presentations, whether in the classroom, at a conference, or leading students on field trips.
Conrad was a friend, historian, artist, scholar, mentor, teacher, and marine scientist, who contributed immensely in advancing the field of carbonate sedimentology, and whose impact in my life will always be treasured.
Henry (Hank) T. Mullins, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geology, Syracuse University
I first met Dr. A. C. Neumann in 1975 when he made the short drive from his office at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, to Duke University where he was to present a research seminar on an oceanographic topic I never heard of before – “Deep Water Coral Reefs In The Northern Straits Of Florida”. When I first saw Conrad he did not fit my stereotype of an oceanographer. He was a tall, lanky, casually dressed man who I wondered how he could even fit into the 7 foot sphere of the DSRV ALVIN with two other people. But when he began to speak it was clear that he had a “beautiful mind”. He spoke with openness, creativity, insight, knowledge, humor, and showed us spectacular photos, that he took out the portholes of ALVIN. These observational data were then summarized skillfully in a series of hand drawn “figures” published in the journal GEOLOGY (1977). With this publication Conrad established himself as carbonate platform “pioneer” from the platforms shallow water tops, down their slopes and into the abyss!
I also realized for the first time that Conrad was a frustrated artist trapped in an oceanographer’s body! I approached Conrad after his talk and told him of my continued interest in studying the deep, blue waters peripheral to the Bahama carbonate platform. He invited me to visit UNC, told me about his NSF grants and offered me a graduate research scholarship, which I ultimately accepted. Conrad was a “synergist”. When I arrived on the UNC campus he already had NSF funding and shiptime secured, as well as PhD student Mark Boardman (peri-platform ooze cycles) and post-doctoral fellow Dr. Albert C. Hine “on board”. Al brought with him relatively new technology and expertise–high resolution seismic reflection profiling that Conrad encouraged him to apply to the shallow water margins of the Bahama Platform, which revolutionized our paradigm of how carbonate platforms buildup over time and what is a “reef”. Al became a second mentor to me and a life-long colleague, and friend.
A PhD student to join “Neumann’s Navy” was Jude Wilber whom Conrad recruited from Duke and who studied the petrography of submarine cementation of deep water coral reefs. Stan Locker, a MS student studying lagoonal sedimentation along northeastern Little Bahama Bank, was the final member of the team. We all worked together, under Conrad’s synergistic philosophy, on many more shallow and deep water research cruises and ALVIN dives. Even after leaving UNC, Conrad lent a helping hand to our careers. I got a call from Conrad offering me two weeks of shiptime aboard NSF’s R/V EASTWARD, which I eagerly accepted to conduct a comprehensive study of the slope and basin north of Little Bahama Bank, where we, of course, discovered more coral reefs at twice the water depth as Conrad’s reefs in the Straits of Florida! All of this hard work paid off in the maiden voyage of the Ocean Drilling Program’s (ODP) new drillship JOIDES RESOLUTION in 1985 (Leg 101), that all started with Conrad’s ALVIN observations and drawings of deep water coral reefs in 1977!
Conrad will be remembered by the oceanographic community as a slightly eccentric but free-thinking, creative marine scientist, who was a cartoon-style artist who pioneered study of modern deep-water carbonate platforms. As one of his PhD students I can only speak for myself, but I also will remember Conrad’s attributes mentioned above. However, he was much more. Conrad was my mentor and teacher who provided all the tools I would need to succeed, as well as the freedom to fail. But, Conrad’s holistic, synergetic philosophy toward science made me succeed! He was also my friend. “Lithoherms forever! RIP.
Cynthia (Cindy) Pilskaln, PhD, Professor, UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, New Bedford, MA
Conrad was my mentor, my colleague, my fishing buddy and great friend. From the moment he invited me on a series of ALVIN dives and I came to UNC as his post-doc in 1984, I knew that I had been given an amazing gift of friendship that would last a lifetime. Jane and Conrad folded me into their wonderful, creative family full of laughter and music, like I was one of their own. I learned by example from Conrad that teaching geology and oceanography with real stories and enthusiasm for the science we love was the way to truly reach students—and I, like others, incorporated into my own courses his fabulous cartoons that he generously gave to so many. This man never ceased to revel in deciphering earth’s stories told in the rocks and by the sea, whether it be on his umpteenth oceanographic research cruise, Shackleford Banks field trip, Bahamas geology field course, or trek around “the cliffs”—and then he shared it all with us in his poems. His sense of humor was infectious and never failed to result in many laugh-til-you-cry moments! In addition to teaching me an awful lot about carbonate rocks, Conrad showed me how to catch bluefish without having your fingers bitten off in the process, hand-line for flounder (while singing an old sea shanty), shuck clams, how to make the best G&T, and the secrets of growing anything in the red NC dirt. Most importantly, he taught me to have confidence in myself as an oceanographer and scientist, to embrace every new adventure with gusto, and not to take myself too seriously. You gave me so much my friend—I can never thank you enough. You are of the sea and the island, and there you will always be. I will miss you forever, Cindy
Blair Tormey, Coastal Research Scientist, Western Carolina University
I was Conrad’s last graduate student at UNC Chapel-Hill and am forever grateful that he agreed to take on one more student. I once joked with him that he saved the best for last, to which he replied, “Are you kidding? You’re the whole reason I’m retiring!”
The only thing sharper than Conrad’s wit was his pencil. Early in my studies, I went to Conrad’s office to get some research advice, and launched into a long-winded series of inquiries that I had been saving up. The whole time, Conrad was doodling on his notepad, seeming not to pay attention. Eventually, I got a peek at his notes and saw the page was filled with intricate doodles and diagrams of everything I had been discussing. That’s precisely how Conrad lived, constantly taking in the world around him, and translating it into art and poetry. Watching Conrad teach was a thing of beauty.
Conrad was in his final years at UNC when he agreed to take me on, and as such, had limited grant funding. Undaunted by this, Conrad taught me that good science can, in fact, be done on a shoestring budget – especially if the proposed work is solid and well-researched. While it wasn’t easy to convince funding agencies (or Conrad, for that matter) to send a 24-year-old kid to the Bahamas for Bahamas is still bearing fruit twenty years later.
Working with Conrad and Paul sometimes felt as if the Odd Couple had decided to share custody of a graduate student. Despite this, we enjoyed a highly productive collaboration on projects since 1997, examining the sea-level and climatic instability of the last interglacial in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Bermuda.