BLAIR F. JONES: HONORING HIS CAREER AND LIFETIME ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Blair’s long, distinguished career in the mineralogical and geochemical sciences is reflected in not just a lengthy list of seminal publications, but also in the character of a person who nurtured friendships, challenged existing paradigms, and shared his friends freely through his career spanning nearly 60 years with the USGS. Blair made significant contributions to clay mineralogy, mineral rock interaction, the chemical evolution of natural waters and their mineral controls, the geochemical evolution of evaporative waters, and critical understanding of their mineral residues. The scope and depth of talks given in this session are testimony to Blair’s influence on the geochemistry and mineralogy of terminal lake systems.

Along with many collaborators, Blair authored numerous articles on mineralogy and mineral weathering, especially in saline lake environments. Too numerous to summarize here, it is appropriate only to recognize the influence of his work on his numerous colleagues. He successfully married the disciplines of aqueous geochemistry and mineralogy, especially the clay minerals. He was co-author of the computer code, WATEQ, the predecessor of the widely used, PHREEQ, a salt normative program, SNORM, for calculating mineral residues from natural waters, and SPREADBAL, a mass transfer model to help understand mineral controls on natural waters. His pioneering study of the geochemistry of brines in Deep Springs Valley, CA is well known. Blair’s subsequent studies of saline residues in Magadi, Abert, Bonneville, Walker, and Mono Lakes have influenced many in this discipline.

He would often remind his physical hydrogeology colleagues that the solutes in natural waters had to come from somewhere, and that much more could be learned by the integration of mineralogical controls, and aqueous geochemistry into their physical based groundwater and surface water models. Today that challenge remains largely at the center of modern studies of natural aqueous environments.

The presentation will highlight Blair’s career; accomplishments, publications, and interactions with colleagues throughout his years with the U.S. Geological Survey.