Gene Shinn Writes “Bootstrap Geologist—My Life in Science”
Retired USGS geologist Gene Shinn signed copies of his new book, “Bootstrap Geologist—My Life in Science,” at the 2013 convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
On a May evening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the 2013 convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, retired U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) geologist Gene Shinn sat at a table signing copies of his new book, “Bootstrap Geologist—My Life in Science.” Gene was greeted with pleasure by numerous colleagues—from the oil industry, where he began his career; from the USGS, where he spent the greater part of it; and from academia, a world he recently joined as a courtesy professor at the University of South Florida.
Gene’s new book details experiences and discoveries from each of these worlds, amassed over a career that has spanned nearly five decades.
Gene began as a lab assistant with Shell Development Company's Coral Gables Carbonate Research group. One of his Shell supervisors, Marlan Downey, cites Gene's energy, open mind, extraordinary level of curiosity, and powers of observation as the qualities that propelled him from lab assistant to senior geologist at Shell. Those same qualities, aided by his boating and scuba skills, led Gene to discoveries that were controversial for the time, such as his realization while diving in the Persian Gulf that limestone cement can form in saltwater, not just in freshwater.
After a varied and rewarding 15 years with Shell, Gene joined the USGS in 1974, taking a job that he writes “would lead to the most productive thirty-one years of my life.” His curiosity unabated, Gene kept his eye on topics that had interested him at Shell, such as submarine cementation, and he branched out into many new areas of research, such as measuring rates of coral growth as a clue to coral health and investigating the ecologic effects of African dust carried by winds to the Caribbean.
Still going strong after retiring from the USGS in 2006, Gene received the Twenhofel Medal, the highest award given by the Society for Sedimentary Geology, in 2009. He continues doing science and service work from his office at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, where he also penned the new book.
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