Moire Wadleigh at the Princess Sodalite Mine, Bancroft, Ontario in 1979
Sodalite is the deep blue mineral in these rocks. It is quite rare, used mainly as an ornamental stone and in jewellery. This locality in Bancroft produces some of the finest specimens of sodalite in the world.
But it is this young lady, seen here and in other pictures of this set, that I want to introduce. Her name is Moire Wadleigh; she was 21 years old and an undergraduate geology student at Carleton University in Ottawa when this picture was taken in June of 1979. Moire was my assistant during that summer. And what a great assistant she was; hard working, meticulous, enthusiastic, full of life and with a great sense of humour.
One day she asked me what I thought could be a good career path for her. In the late 1970's, the word "environment" was just becoming fashionable as a subject that mankind should be concerned about and I suggested that Environmental Geochemistry could provide her with an interesting and challenging future. She went on to do a Masters in environmental geochemistry at the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. at McMaster University in Hamilton, specializing in stable isotopes, and continued her career as a professor of Environmental Sciences at Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland. She was well underway to becoming a brilliant star in her field when it all came to a premature end with her untimely death in November 2004, the sad outcome of a lengthy illness. She was 47. I was profoundly distressed by this loss of a dear friend and former colleague. To her memory, I would like to dedicate two albums of photographs, one on Melville Peninsula and the other on Baffin Island where we worked together in 1978 and 1979 respectively.
Moire Wadleigh at the Princess Sodalite Mine, Bancroft, Ontario in 1979
Sodalite is the deep blue mineral in these rocks. It is quite rare, used mainly as an ornamental stone and in jewellery. This locality in Bancroft produces some of the finest specimens of sodalite in the world.
But it is this young lady, seen here and in other pictures of this set, that I want to introduce. Her name is Moire Wadleigh; she was 21 years old and an undergraduate geology student at Carleton University in Ottawa when this picture was taken in June of 1979. Moire was my assistant during that summer. And what a great assistant she was; hard working, meticulous, enthusiastic, full of life and with a great sense of humour.
One day she asked me what I thought could be a good career path for her. In the late 1970's, the word "environment" was just becoming fashionable as a subject that mankind should be concerned about and I suggested that Environmental Geochemistry could provide her with an interesting and challenging future. She went on to do a Masters in environmental geochemistry at the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. at McMaster University in Hamilton, specializing in stable isotopes, and continued her career as a professor of Environmental Sciences at Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland. She was well underway to becoming a brilliant star in her field when it all came to a premature end with her untimely death in November 2004, the sad outcome of a lengthy illness. She was 47. I was profoundly distressed by this loss of a dear friend and former colleague. To her memory, I would like to dedicate two albums of photographs, one on Melville Peninsula and the other on Baffin Island where we worked together in 1978 and 1979 respectively.