William Thomas Pecora
William Thomas Pecora | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1 February 1913 |
| Died | 19 July 1972 |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | Harvard University and Princeton |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Petrology, Geology |
| Institutions | US Geological Survey |
William Thomas Pecora (February 1, 1913 – July 19,1972) was an American geologist.
Life and Career
Willam Thomas Pecora was born in Belleville, NJ son of Cono and Anna (Amabile) Pecora. Both parents were born in southern Italy in the village of San Arsenio. One of 10 children, four boys and six girls. Bill was number 9. Family was in the wholesale import business. In 1929, Bill was awarded the Charles H. K. Halsey Scholarship that provided a $1,000 annual scholarship at Princeton University. Majored in geology and geologic engineering at Princeton. Received his bachelors degree from Princeton in 1933. After graduation, he stayed on at Princeton as a tutor in geology. In the summer of 1934, he was a filed assistant to Erling Dorf, working in Montana on Paleozoic stratigraphy. Bill started graduate studies at Harvard University in 1935, concentrating on optical mineralogy and petrography. Bill received a grant form the Holden Fund to finance fieldwork in 1937-1939 in the western fringe of the Bearpaw Mountains. His doctoral thesis was a petrologic study of the Boxelder laccolith. He received his Ph. D. from Harvard University in 1940.
During the summer of 1936, Bill was in Germany as a member of the United States Olympic fencing team. He msrried Ethelwyn Elizabeth Carter on April 7, 1947. She was from Franklin County, Kentucky. They had two children, William Carter Pecora born in 1949 and Ann Stewart Pecora born in 1953.
In 1949, he started a large-scale geologic mapping program of eight fifteen-minute quadrangles in the Bearpaw Mountains. The first four of these maps was published in 1957 as Miscellaneous Geologic Investigation Maps and the other four were epublished in bulletins starting in 1960 and ending in 1963. In 1956, Bill published a review paper on carbonatites which are carbonate-silicate rocks containing a variety of minerals. He emphasized that these formations contain an impressive reserve of rare commodities – titanium, zirconium, and uranium. Later, in a 1962 paper, Bill concentrated on the carbonatite deposits in the Bearpaw Mountains.
In 1957, Bill was selected as Chief of the Branch of Geochemistry and Petrology within the US Geological Survey. He established programs in geochronology, experimental petrology, and mineralogy. In 1961, he returned to research. He was named Chief Geologist in 1964 and a year later was appointed Director of the U.S. Geological Survey by President Lyndon B. Johnson. As Director, he pressed for programs that would be responsive to emerging national problems, such as investigations of gold resources and off-shore oil and gas exploration. He established the National Center of Earthquake Research in response to problems revealed by the Alaska earthquake of 1964.
Bill also addressed the discovery of large oil reserves of oil and gas on the north coast of Alaska in 1968. Under his Direction, the U.S. Geological Survey made a careful study of the geologic aspects of the proposed pipeline route. From 1947 to 1967 he was a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission’s Board of Examiners for Geology, concerned with the development and maintenance of standards in the selection of geologists for federal employment. He was an active member of the Survey’s Pick and Hammer shows, which were presented annually to make fun of top Survey managers.
Appointment by President Nixon on April 1, 1971 to serve as Undersecretary of the Department of Interior.
Awards and Honors
1964 - President, Geological Society of Washington 1965 – Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1965 – Fellow, National Academy of Sciences 1968 – President, Cosmos Club 1968 – Distinguished Service Award, Department of the Interior 1969 – Doctorate of Science, Franklin and Marshall College 1969 – Rockefeller Public Service Award 1970 – Doctorate of Engineering, Colorado School of Mines 1972 – Public Service Award, American Association of Petroleum Geologists 1973 - a 6,000 foot ridge in the Bearpaw Mountains was named Pecora Ridge in honor of Bill Pecora. Fellow and Councilor, Geological Society of America Fellow and Councilor, Mineralogical Society of America
Publications
- Pecora, William T. “Structure and Petrology of the Boxelder laccolith, Bearpaw Mountains, Montana” Geological Society of America Bulletin, no. 52: pp. 817-853. (1941)
- Pecora, William T. and S.W. Hobbs, “Nickel-gold deposit near Mount Vernon, Skagit County, Washington” US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 931-D, pp. 57-78 (1941)
- Pecora, William T. and S.W. Hobbs, “Nickel deposit near Riddle, Douglas County, Oregon” ” US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 931-I, pp. 205-226 (1942)
