David Stoddart (geographer)

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David R. Stoddart
Born(1937-11-15)15 November 1937
Stockton-on-Tees, England
Died23 November 2014(2014-11-23) (aged 77)
Berkeley, California, US
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD.)
Scientific career
Fields biogeography, coral reefs, atolls
Institutions University of Cambridge
University of California, Berkeley

David Ross Stoddart, OBE (15 November 1937 – 23 November 2014) was a British physical geographer known for the study of coral reefs and atolls. He was also known for key works on the history and philosophy of geography as an academic discipline. He was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and then professor and later emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. [1] [2]

Contents

Early and private life

Stoddart grew up in Stockton-on-Tees, northeast England. His parents both served in France during the First World War, his father with the Royal Flying Corps and his mother as a nurse. His father later became an engineer working in the construction of heavy industrial buildings for Ashmore, Benson, and Pease (later Davy International; now part of Siemens). He had two siblings.

He married fellow Cambridge geographer June in 1961 and had a daughter, Aldabra (named after the island) and a son, Michael. He collected a very large private library in Berkeley.

Stoddart suffered from diabetes and skin cancer in later life. [3] He died in Berkeley, California, on 23 November 2014. [4]

Academic career

Stoddart was possibly the first person from his local grammar school (now demolished) to enter the University of Cambridge, in 1956 (a schoolfriend secured a place at Oxford). He studied tropical geography at St.John's College with Alfred Steers from 1956, graduating with a first class degree in 1959. His introduction to coral reefs came on the Cambridge Expedition to British Honduras (Belize), 1959–60. He returned there for further research into corals and the plants of the cays, working for Louisiana State University before and after a major hurricane, tracking its effects on atolls and reefs. He gained a Cambridge PhD for this work in 1964 and was appointed lecturer in geography at Cambridge, rising through the ranks. He was a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1966 to 1987. [5] In the mid-1980s he was a Regents Fellow at the Smithsonian.

He was appointed chair of department and professor of geography at the University of California, Berkeley in 1988, holding the headship until 1994, when he was forced aside by the dean. The department had internal conflicts, and Stoddart had managed these effectively for the first few years, hiring several new staff. Ill health was cited when he retired from Berkeley in 2000.

Stoddart studied the geomorphology and ecology of tropical islands and reefs, beginning in Belize, then the Maldives, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, and various locations in the Pacific including the Great Barrier Reef, Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, and in the mid-1970s to the disputed Phoenix Islands. His particular focus was documenting the plant assemblages present on atolls, making links to evolutionary biology. He also studied the evolution of atolls since the Pleistocene. [6]

In the mid-1960s, accompanying a military expedition, he discovered great biodiversity and documented the huge tortoise populations on the Seychelles island of Aldabra, and the scientific work on its habitat was instrumental in stopping the construction of a British military airfield. The island became a World Heritage Site in 1982. In 1967, a similar expedition went to Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, prior to its appropriation for a controversial American base. [7]

In 1969 Stoddart participated in the Cook Bicentenary Expedition to Rarotonga, Tonga and the Cook Islands. [8]

The decline in interest and status of the discipline of climatic geomorphology was in part indebted to a 1969 publication of Stoddart. [9] [10] Stoddart criticized climatic geomorphology for applying supposedly "trivial" methodologies in establishing landform differences between morphoclimatic zones, being linked to Davisian geomorphology and by allegedly neglecting the fact that physical laws governing processes are the same across the globe. [10]

He also held an interest in the history of geographic thought, publishing a major book On Geography and Its History in 1986 and several articles about the discipline, and on the contribution of Darwin's work to understanding the Earth. A parallel program on the morphology and hydrodynamics of salt marshes was largely conducted in the UK. [6] He also studied mangroves and sedimentation.

He published work in the Smithsonian Institution's Atoll Research Bulletin. He was also one of the founders of the journal Progress in Geography, and the first co-ordinating editor of the journal Coral Reefs. He was a co-founder and first president of the International Society for Reef Studies and helped to establish the quadrennial International Coral Reef Symposium. He was also involved in the establishment of the International Year of the Reef in 1997, and of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

Recognition

Key Publications

Related Research Articles

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The Glorieuses or Glorioso Islands are a group of islands and rocks totaling 5 square kilometres (1.9 sq mi). They are controlled by France as part of the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a French overseas territory, but are also claimed by Comoros, Madagascar and formerly by Seychelles. They are geographically part of the Comoro Islands between the French overseas region of Mayotte and the nation of Madagascar.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography of Seychelles</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coral reef</span> Outcrop of rock in the sea formed by the growth and deposit of stony coral skeletons

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldabra</span> Coral atoll in the Indian Ocean

Aldabra, the world's second-largest coral atoll, is located southeast of the continent of Africa. It is part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, with a distance of 1,120 km (700 mi) southwest of the capital, Victoria on Mahé Island. Initially named by Arab seafarers for its harsh environment, Aldabra became a French colony dependency in the 18th century, leading to the exploitation of its natural resources, particularly giant tortoises. After passing through British hands, Aldabra faced potential military use in the 1960s, but international protests resulted in its protection. The atoll boasts unique geography, featuring the world's largest raised coral reef and a large shallow lagoon. Aldabra's history involves human impact, including failed agricultural ventures.

Cosmoledo Atoll is an atoll of the Aldabra Group and belongs to the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, and is located 1,029 km (639 mi) southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island.

The Farquhar Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles, part of the Outer Islands chain. It is located 770 kilometres southwest of Mahé Island and the capital, Victoria, 258 km (160 mi) north of Madagascar, and around 1,000 km (621 mi) from the East African mainland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldabra Group</span> Part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outer Islands (Seychelles)</span> Collective term for those islands of the Seychelles that are not on the shallow Seychelles Bank

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microatoll</span>

A microatoll is a circular colony of coral, dead on the top but living around the perimeter. Growth is mainly lateral, as upward growth is limited by exposure to air. Microatolls may be up to 6 meters (20 ft) in diameter. They are named for their resemblance to island atolls formed during the subsidence of volcanic islands, as originally suggested by Darwin (1842).

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The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs and atolls. He conceived of the idea during the voyage of the Beagle while still in South America, before he had seen a coral island, and wrote it out as HMS Beagle crossed the Pacific Ocean, completing his draft by November 1835. At the time there was great scientific interest in the way that coral reefs formed, and Captain Robert FitzRoy's orders from the Admiralty included the investigation of an atoll as an important scientific aim of the voyage. FitzRoy chose to survey the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean. The results supported Darwin's theory that the various types of coral reefs and atolls could be explained by uplift and subsidence of vast areas of the Earth's crust under the oceans.

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References

  1. ↑ "David Stoddart - Geography at Berkeley". Archived from the original on 10 September 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Obituary, The Independent, 4 December 2014
  3. ↑ "Walker Talks". Archived from the original on 9 June 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2013. Walker, R. 2012. From the Age of Dino-Sauers to the Anthropo-Scene: Reminiscences of life in Berkeley Geography, 1975–2012. Retirement talk, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, 25 April 2012
  4. ↑ "David Stoddart obituary". TheGuardian.com . 9 December 2014.
  5. ↑ http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/atollresearchbulletin/issues/00494.12.pdf Stoddart, D.R. 2001. Be of good cheer, my weary readers, for I have espied land. Atoll Research Bulletin 494(12)
  6. 1 2 Spencer, T. 2011. David Stoddart. In Hopley, D. (ed.). 'Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs: Structure, Form and Process'. Springer. p1044.
  7. ↑ http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/atollresearchbulletin/issues/00494.12.pdf Stoddart, D.R. 2001. Be of good cheer, my weary readers, for I have espied land. Attoll Research Bulletin 494(12)
  8. ↑ Fraser, Ronald. "A Narrative of the Cook Bicentenary Expedition". The Royal Society of New Zealand bulletin. 8: 21–28. ISSN   1176-1865. Wikidata   Q125502663.
  9. ↑ Goudie, A.S. (2004). "Climatic geomorphology". In Goudie, A.S. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Geomorphology. pp. 162–164.
  10. 1 2 Thomas, Michael F. (2004). "Tropical geomorphology". In Goudie, A.S. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Geomorphology. pp. 1063–1069.
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