Jason B. Saleeby, professor passed away at 74, Caltech mourns his death
Jason B. Saleeby, professor passed away at 74
Jason B. Saleeby Death – On January 16, geology professor emeritus Jason B. Saleeby passed away after a long battle with cancer. He had 74 years under his belt. Saleeby received his bachelor’s degree in 1972 from California State University, Northridge, and his PhD in 1975 from UC Santa Barbara. Both institutions are located in California. In 1978, he became an assistant professor at Caltech, and he was eventually tenured there in 1988.
Jason B. Saleeby career
In 2015, he took his retirement. Saleeby was an advocate of getting out into the field; however, he combined his hands-on approach to geology with lab-based expertise in geophysics, petrology, geochronology, and thermochronology to provide analysis ranging from the continental scale down to the microscale. Saleeby was a champion of getting out into the field.
Saleeby wrote
“Field-based geological research is unique in the scientific endeavor, by virtue of the direct connections that can be made between tactile human experience and advanced scientific instrumentation and analysis,” Saleeby wrote upon receiving the Distinguished Geologic Career Award from the Geological Society of America in 2012. “From the perspective of a childlike inquisitiveness of our natural environment, a life full of multidisciplinary field-based research gives one the sense that our planet is the ultimate amusement park!”
Pacific coast of North America
Saleeby’s research interests included the tectonic and geochronological studies in orogenic terranes of western North America, emphasizing the paleogeographic development of the Pacific Basin and its margins specifically, the North American Cordillera, which is the mountain chain system that stretches along the Pacific coast of North America. In particular, he focused on the formation and structure of the batholith, a region-spanning chunk of igneous rock, of the Sierra Nevada.
University of Arizona wrote
In the announcement for Saleeby’s Distinguished Geologic Career Award, George G. Gehrels (PhD ’86) of the University of Arizona wrote, “In fact, few Earth scientists have been able to glean as much information from rocks and structures in the field, and then apply a broad range of quantitative techniques to provide constraints on their ages and origins.”
Photo credit: pasadenanow
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