Richard Hay, the retired Ralph Grim Professor of Geology at the University of Illinois, died Feb. 10, 2006, of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 79.
Hay earned bachelor’s (1946) and master’s (1948) degrees from Northwestern, and then a Ph.D. in geology from Princeton in 1952. After Army service, he became an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in 1955. In 1957 he came to UC, Berkeley, as an associate professor. He rose to full professor and in 1983 accepted the Grim professorship at Illinois. He retired in 1997.
Hay’s career was distinguished by his work in sedimentary petrology and archaeological geology. He is best known for providing the geological framework for two archaeological sites in East Africa, and for the discovery of the “mega-replacement of Cambrian-Ordovician strata throughout the U.S. mid-continent by low-temperature potassium feldspar.” With great humility, he once wrote a colleague: “But we still don’t know where the potassium comes from.”
His book, Geology of the Olduvai Gorge (1976), is viewed as having a lasting impact. His papers with Mary Leakey helped lead anthropologists to fundamental discoveries in human evolution.
Hay is survived by Lynn, his wife of 32 years, and his son, Randall.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.