TRAVELS WITH CONRAD: ONE DOCTORAL STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE, 1983-89

I spent six watershed years at the University of North Carolina studying modern, shallow-water, carbonate depositional environments under the direction of A. Conrad Neumann. I was Conrad’s PhD student at the Curriculum in Marine Sciences in Chapel Hill from 1983 through 1989, during which time we focused on the Holocene sequence found within the platform interior of the Bight of Abaco (Bahamas), and how it might inform our understanding of analogous lagoonal sequences preserved within the more ancient geologic record. Conrad and I published several papers and abstracts on this general subject, focusing on the influence of a permeable, “dish-shaped,” paleokarstic antecedent foundation available there. Our work documented Holocene flooding first from within ("internal transgression"), and its profound impact on the Holocene sediment/Pleistocene rock interface preserved across the lagoon’s limestone base, as well as in the stable isotope record of organic carbon preserved within the overlying Holocene burial sequence. Having had a front-row seat to Conrad in the field, lab, and classroom, at meetings and on ships, in the US and abroad, I can testify to his remarkable ability to identify patterns and processes of consequence in nature, and to inspire his students and colleagues to ask fundamental questions about them. Conrad was a multi-talented thinker, writer, and artist focused on but not limited to things calcareous – one of the most intellectually generous people one could imagine in any walk of life, let-alone in the highly competitive arena of science. Conrad could and would happily “hold court” with multitudes of undergrads, grads, ship’s crew, and seasoned scientists alike, all of them anticipating the wit and wisdom (potential dissertation and/or proposal questions?) to flow from him like water – and we were rarely disappointed. There will obviously never be another Conrad, and those who worked with him know that to no small degree, we all bask in the glow of his reflected glory. Although Conrad is no longer with us, through his students and their academic descendants, may we continue to reap the benefits of his curiosity, scholarship, and enduring spirit.