Calvin Miller

Calvin Miller
Vanderbilt University

2018 Distinguished Geologic Career Award (MGPV Division)

Presented to Calvin Miller

Citation by Jonathan Miller

Calvin Miller’s career embodies the criteria for MGPV Distinguished Career Award. Calvin’s research is rooted fundamentally in fieldwork, but the questions he has addressed over his career have always involved application of state-of-the art laboratory work with colleagues from around the world. All of his work has been multidisciplinary and collaborative from the start.

Calvin’s research stretches across the fields of Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology, and Volcanology, and underscores the tremendous breadth and scope of his contributions. Key among these are: (1) establishing the conditions for magmatic garnet and muscovite stability in silicic magmas; (2) challenging and ultimately helping to refine the genetic basis of the “I” and “S” granite classification; (3) documenting the fundamental role that accessory minerals play in controlling the trace element evolution of silicic magmas during magmatic differentiation; (4) applying zircon saturation thermometry to define two broad classes of granites--‘hot’ and ‘cold’ granites; (5) providing an enhanced understanding of the geodynamics and crustal evolution of southern Laurentia; (6) recognizing the importance and documenting key examples of composite, granitic, crystal mush bodies and granitic cumulates preserved in plutons; (7) establishing linkages between volcanic rocks and their plutonic underpinnings, and illuminating the storage conditions of subvolcanic magma bodies, including supervolcanoes; (8) the origin of Iceland rhyolites.

Of equal importance to Calvin’s scholarship is his service as a model scientist and colleague for the MGPV community. Throughout his career Calvin has been involved in important and sometimes controversial problems in crustal petrology and volcanology, but he has always promoted and engaged in healthy and vigorous scientific disagreement without acrimony. Calvin has always remained humble about his accomplishments and unselfish with sharing ideas to promote the advance of knowledge in the MGPV field.

Finally, it is impossible to overstate Calvin’s positive impact as an educator, advisor, and mentor to legions of students and junior colleagues, many of whom have gone on to have respected careers in academia, government, and the private sector. Calvin’s patient guidance and dedication to their success and helping them to prosper, is central to who Calvin is as a scientist and as a person.

Calvin Miller is indeed a most deserving recipient of 2018 MGPV Distinguished Career Award.

top2018 Distinguished Geologic Career Award (MGPV Division) — Response by Calvin Miller

I was sitting alone in my office – I think alone in my department – on December 27 last year intent on completing a (typically overdue) review when I was jolted by my ringing phone. Landline calls in my office are a rarity, especially so on dead days during breaks. It turned out to be Anita Grunder informing me of the MGPV award, but I admit that I was caught so off guard that it did not really register at the moment. In the past 10 months, it has dawned on me more and more just how wonderful this honor is, and this is especially so now that this terrific session is underway. I especially want to thank Jonathan, Bruce, Mark, Kari, Guil, Lily, and Delores (as well as Anita) for their hard work and kindness in preparing the nomination (lots of creativity must have been required!) and putting the session together. I’m especially pleased that you folks have been responsible for all of this, because (1) I respect all of you so much as geoscientists; (2) you have all been so important to me over the years, up to the present; and (3) you reflect so well what my career has been all about in your diversity of specialties and as long- and shorter-term collaborators, former students, and sources of inspiration and rigorous critiques.

I recognize that there’s no way that I can summarize in this rather short document the 50+ years of my life during which I’ve been engaged in geoscience, but I doubt that will be of much concern to anyone (if you want more, stop by to chat! – you’ll probably wish you hadn’t). Much more important, it’s obvious that I can’t even begin to acknowledge all the people who have played vital roles in making those years enjoyable and hopefully worthy of this honor: students with whom I’ve worked (undergrads as well as grad students), formal and informal collaborators. Please know that you (many in this room!) are indeed appreciated!

The MGPV-ness of this award is particularly gratifying to me, because I’ve enjoyed so much the opportunity to consider Earth processes from the diverse points of view of mineralogy, geochemistry, petrology, and volcanology, and also because one criterion is that there be “an important field component.” This is also cause for some embarrassment: only those who are NOT premier field geologists would consider me a real field geologist (e.g. ask wonderful collaborators Keith Howard, Bob Hatcher, Karl Karlstrom, Jim Faulds, Bob Wiebe…); I would likewise have trouble passing myself off as an honest-to-goodness geochemist (cf. Bruce, Mark, Kari, Jonathan; Joe Wooden, John Ayers), or, certainly, as a volcanologist (Charlie Bacon, Mike Clynne, Charles Ferguson, Olgeir Sigmarsson?), or any legitimate mineralogist. But I have found it truly exhilarating to try to bring these perspectives to bear on magmatic and related problems.

My first moment of geoscientific inspiration occurred on the rim of Haleakala when, as a 5-year-old, I was convinced that this (peering into an amazing volcanic landscape) was what I wanted to spend my life doing (weird but true). Eventually, this early curiosity and passion shifted toward granitic landscapes and deeper processes reflected by granitic rocks. Later still, my students and I were inspired to move to shallower and shallower levels of the crust – to upper crustal plutons and potential erupted equivalents. This journey has been real joy: the diverse puzzles we’ve addressed, evolution of ideas, and challenge of attempting to integrate disparate interpretations; the esthetics of the natural settings where we have done our work; and most of all the relationships with collaborators and, especially, students!

A semi-final note: I’ve attempted to instill in students the notions that neither we nor anyone else has the final, complete answer; that there are in fact no final, completely correct answers; but that almost all answers that have been proposed are worthy of consideration, contain at least a grain of truth, and may well be supported in some cases. And in keeping with that, I’d like to include the title of a Goldschmidt abstract from a few years ago: Hot/cold, wet/dry, big/small, erupt/stall, juvenile/anatectic? – Multiple personalities of felsic magmatism.” That is, felsic magmatism originates and manifests itself in lots of different ways.

And a final note: I would most of all like to thank my wife Molly – our careers and lives in general have been intertwined for 48 years. We met in grad school, shared faculty positions at Pomona College for one year and our first 10 years at Vanderbilt (I probably would have had no chance for a Vandy job if not for her), and we have been colleagues at VU and partners in parenting two wonderful kids during all of this time that I’ve been chasing frozen magmas with students (and she’s vigorously pursued the record of life in Antarctica, as well as expanding the geoscientific awareness of graduate and undergraduate and K-12 students and the public at large).

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