A TRIBUTE TO DON WINSTON, MONTANA FIELD GEOLOGIST

Don Winston was a Montana field geologist with a passion for the Mesoproterozoic Belt Supergroup sedimentary rocks of the northern Rockies. Don grew up in Minnesota, graduated in geology from Williams College and did his graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin, mentored by Charlie Bell and Bob Folk. He joined the faculty at the University of Montana in 1961, where he and his students immediately went about working on the seemingly monotonous pile of Belt rocks. He got after it through endless fieldwork, epic measured sections, and good descriptive sedimentology. To help him in the field, Don raised llamas, which he packed into the mountains of western Montana and beyond in search of the next critical measured section.

Like Charles Doolittle Walcott before him, Don concluded the Belt Basin was a vast lake or sea fed by giant alluvial fans formed when streams were not constrained by land plants or modern soils. His work led him on international quests from Spain to Siberia, trying to match lake deposits to the Belt rocks. Don could be found digging trenches through a playa lake in Mexico, lying on a dune watching sand grains bounce in a windstorm, or chasing a flash flood on a desert fan. His infectious passion inspired other researchers to join him in his quest to understand the Belt rocks, testing his models and refining our understanding. Don consumed it all, responding to debate with a pound of his fist and a growl, exclaiming “by gawd, now we’re really getting somewhere!” He taught others what good science by good people should look like, arguably his greatest contribution to the profession of geology.

Don was an experiential educator before it was fashionable. He shared his ideas openly, honestly and with unparalleled enthusiasm. His energy was legendary and his body impervious to any kind of weather. Countless students on his field trips experienced rocks by van light, the power of ripples to “tell us something”, and his backside racing across a coastal mudflat, desert playa or up a steep mountain. Where Don went, everyone followed, if for no other reason but to hear him exclaim “by gawd, look at this!” The days ended with Don playing banjo around a campfire, and morning brought whiskey and eggs to fuel another day. These experiences reached deep among his students and colleagues, influencing a new generation of Belt enthusiasts.