Robert (Bob) John Tingey, one of Australia’s most widely respected and prominent Antarctic scientists, passed away on of 17th November 2017 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Bob joined the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) in 1966, first working in Papua-Nugini, then beginning a long association with Antarctic geology. For many years, Bob led the BMR Antarctic Geology Program, participating in major field mapping campaigns in East Antarctica. Bob recognised the value of international collaborations in the Antarctic, in particular, with the then Soviet Antarctic Expeditions (SAE) which resulted in a number of joint publications including the Geology of the Prince Charles Mountains. Bob served as Secretary of SCAR’s Working Group on Geology for eight years, only standing down in 1988 due to poor health.
In 1990, Bob received the coveted Australian Antarctic Medal for services to Australia’s Antarctic Program, in part due to his seminal work, The Geology of Antarctica (1991), a comprehensive volume compassing all geological disciplines and eras, from the Archaean to the Holocene. This volume still stands as an authoritative stocktake of the geology of the Antarctic.
Bob retired from BMR in 1996 due to ill health, but his passion for geology and the Antarctic remained. More recently, Bob contributed to a project transcribing historic Antarctic Field Notebooks.
Bob’s experience and wry sense of humour will be missed by all who knew him.
Chris Carson and Phil O’Brien