Tribute to Prof. A. Conrad Neumann - Dr. R. Jude Wilber, President,  

Capella Consulting Group , Woods Hole, MA - September, 2020  

“That’s a good story...now where is your data!” - ACN, Venable Hall, 1970’s  

I am reminded, in starting this, how it was that Ron Perkins (Duke University/Geology) first

introduced me to Conrad Neumann (UNC/MASC). I was at Duke, it was 1974, and I was

looking for a master’s thesis - one with real rocks. Conrad had lots of rocks, he was looking

for a petrologist. Ron had just trained me, I was his microscope protege. So Ron was the

deal-maker, the broker of this professional arrangement that would shape both Conrad and

me for the next two decades. He dialed Chapel Hill from Durham (that famous “8 miles

away”) as I stood by. He told me, sotto voce, that this Herr Doktor Neumann was a very

distinguished, German-sort of fellow and that I was to be on my best behavior. There was a

still moment and then, when Conrad rang-on, Ron said: “Connie, you old weasel, how’s

your ass!” And I could hear ACN immediately rise to the occasion. The banter started. I was

almost forgotten. From there I was with ACN as a student for the next 8 years until

graduation, 1981. I was then a colleague for another decade.

He was my advisor for both my Masters and Doctoral research. For my masters, I worked

on his rocks. Tons of strange samples, pseudo-rocks with pseudo-corals, pseudo-fossils

with pseudo-textures. I had never seen such rocks. But then neither had anyone else.

These rocks had been hard won. Plucked from the seafloor, 800m down by Conrad using

(also strange to me) a “submersible” called ALVIN. And rock dredges too. Up to that phone

call I had been a strictly terrestrial scientist. But that all changed instantly. Within months I

was aboard the R/V Eastward. A few years later I would dive in ALVIN. Even more years

later I would meet Al Vine in my hometown, Woods Hole. I would learn where the

submersible named after “a chipmunk” came from.(it came from Al’s garage and it was

really named after him!)

The patterns of scientific inquiry that were established with that phone call led me forever

further offshore. I was increasingly all about the Ocean. Less about the Land. I just never

expected that! Throughout my life journey as a sailor /scientist it was Conrad who was ever

looking over my shoulder. From the Little Bahama Bank “lithoherm” rocks and slope

hardgrounds came mechanisms of lithification such that well-washed sands became

muddy rocks. And as near as we could tell that happened very rapidly and even into

present time. Coral rudstones vs framestones, packstone vs grainstones, wackestones vs

mudstones. Rocks coming into being practically as we held them, as I probed them.

Biomicrudites, biomicrites, biolithites. Periplatform, Penecontemporaneous, Oopelites.

They were all bafflestones to me. Terms and more terms, so many

terms... and Conrad was all too happy to contribute! Before lithification there was

“firmification”,”ramification” and “stiffication”. Was it Paste-to-peloid or was it

peloid-to-paste? Was it micritic or microcrystalline? Could we just agree on when a rock

became a rock? The answers were both macroscopic and microscopic and even

submicroscopic. It was with these rocks I first entered the world of scanning electron

microscopy. There was only one unit for all of Duke & Carolina! SEM time was harder to

get than ship time.

It was during this interval that I got to know Conrad and some of his special traits. First, he

was always way ahead of everyone else. This was very apparent as time went on. The first

indication was his Outstanding Paper Award from Journal of Sedimentary Petrology in

1975. JSP was, for a budding petrologist, the font of all knowledge. The award came to

Conrad and Lynton Land. They had done some difficult field measurements atop Great

Bahama Bank. Their calculations showed that calcareous algal growth could account for a

high volume of muddy (4 micron aragonite crystallites) sediment atop the Bank during sea

level high stands. This was a whole new perspective on the carbonate “factory”. Time would

show that this mud was the “all” of the Bahamian carbonate factory. Reefs no, Whitings yes!

Years later, along with other graduate students and colleagues, Conrad would be chasing

alternate mud origins as well as mechanisms for delivery to deep waters. But even then it

was clear that most of the mud was missing from the bank top, the thin layer of sediment

was just too thin, too coarse. And there was no “accommodation space”. So this was

termed “overproduction”. The idea of “export” was established, and the search for the

missing mud was on! With this one contribution Conrad and Lynton set a whole generation

of sedimentologists and oceanographers into action. The paper that launched a thousand

ships… This aspect of Conrad’s science is sometimes overlooked: If you paid attention

then you would have research directions for life!

So those “deep flank” rocks (my term, with ACN blessing) were important to me and to us

as a research team. I was allowed to wrestle with the petrography on my own. I was allowed

to make findings and then conclusions. I linked the paste-to-peloid, micro-sequences to

gradational hardground lithification. I was allowed to argue with Conrad as a peer. To

convince him using the data. My opening quote is very similar to that used by Mark

Boardman. “The Story & The Data” were to be interwoven but the data had to be there as

the primary “literary device”. Under Conrad I made my first scientific discovery. I made a

contribution. We folded in other data and eventually published it as Wilber and Neumann,

1993, “Effects of Submarine Cementation on Microfabrics and Physical Properties of

Carbonate Slope Deposits, Northern Bahamas.”

When the time came for life after Duke I had one very good option = 8 miles away. Conrad

was in the newly-established Marine Sciences Curriculum at UNC (MASC). He had jumped

ship (literally) from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) for

a tenured position at MASC. No longer a lone operative, he was assembling young

research scientists for what became the Geological Research in Oceanography Group

(GROG). He invited me and so I followed Hank Mullins from Durham to Chapel Hill. Mark

Boardman was there as was Al Hine, a postdoc. Stan Locker and Robin Lighty soon

arrived. None of us really knew what we were doing, all of us were new to carbonates but

over the next few years each of us carved out an area of interest and fashioned it into a

doctoral research project.

I interacted with Conrad daily. I came to know more of his career path and personal life. He

was hugely proud to be from Martha’s Vineyard (The Vin-yuh) with its sea-going traditions.

And even more proud of the time that he spent on the R/V Atlantis . His “A-boat” tales were

to affect me in a permanent fashion. He was a poet and philosopher. He was thinking or

entertaining in equal measure. And the cartoons were amazing. At Duke I was introduced to

the term “Big Picture” by Orrin Pilkey. But it was Conrad who demonstrated a firm

commitment to the Big Picture. I would say that the best demonstration of this is his History

of Oceanography Cartoon. (seen here). A down-flowing cascade of years, events, people

and ships. Literally everything you need to know. Just study this cartoon for 10 minutes and

you have it. In this depiction it was clear to everyone that Conrad’s place was with the

Elizabethian “sea dogs”. Aaargh matey! was ever a Conradism. In his cartoons, the smallest

piece of data, the most obscure conclusion could morph into a fully-animated explanation of

grand puzzles. The selection of cartoons that are seen here are a small sample. Conrad

was turning out a cartoon each day. He was sketching them on everything. I came to

understand that Conrad did his best thinking this way. He literally thought in cartoons.

A lot of what went on with MASC/GROG occurred in a kind of competitive syncopation with

happenings at RSMAS. It was hard not to notice this. For too long Bob Ginsburg and

company had commanded the final say in modern carbonates, full ownership of Florida and

the Bahamas. Conrad and his new gang were an intrusion. And it was this perception that

“they” somehow saw “us” as the “B” team that inspired us to prove them wrong. I don't see

this aspect of the early days mentioned anywhere else. But we all felt it. Conrad most

especially. I sometimes wonder how GROG research would have proceeded in the absence

of this competitive spur.

It was also difficult for Conrad to manage GROG. “Management” was not a strong suit. This

had both positive and negative aspects. On the plus side we all had a helluva lot of freedom

as scientists. We were never assigned research projects. On the other hand there was a

sort of discombobulated approach as a research group. I came as a petrologist/

sedimentologist. Hank had moved into seismic stratigraphy and some big picture ideas of

his own. Al was a rock-solid sedimentologist and oceanographer. Mark was oriented toward

geochemistry. Robin was also a petrologist. Stan was multi-faceted including expertise in

the new-fangled computers. Under stricter management there would have been

coordination of all this talent and probably different results. But we weren’t there for

coordination. We were there for ideas. And in that regard Conrad was the font. I know that

as far as I was concerned discombobulation was good for original thinking.

What we all had in common was CaCO3. And the places for CaCO3 were in the northern

Bahamas. And to get to these places you needed a ship. One of the most important things I

learned as a neophyte Oceanographer was the value of ship time. Thus we were all

required to write a full research proposal and also a proposal for ship time for our doctoral

work. It was up to Conrad (and Al) to get that ship time. And you could count on one thing:

If you were really good you would get half of what you asked for. Nevertheless I came to

understand how important it was to have independent small-scale research - even if sort of

scattered - funded through a public trust. NSF and UNOLS were names that became

familiar. More than anyone Conrad believed in supporting the” little guy” as he understood

that good ideas and good science came from many roots. When he served a year at NSF

he was able to direct funding to a very diverse group of smaller applicants. Those with no

funding history. This outraged some. And the effects were known as the “Neumann blip” as

they were felt for years after. Conrad took a lot of crap for that but he was proud of what he

had done.

The GROG guys eventually went to sea and collected their data. Hank used air guns for

seismic profiles and piston cores for ground-truth. Deep Bahamian waters. The R/V Queasy

(Eastward). Mark turned to isotope geochemistry as he tracked the genesis of sediments in

the Northwest Providence Channel. He worked both shallow and deep. And Mark used

punch cards (gasp!) so that the single, gigundo computer at UNC could “grunch” his data.

The rest of us were of the shallow-water inclination and we found the R/V Calanus . This

cute little boat had been designed with very shallow waters in mind. She was flat-bottomed

and drew 4 feet! Al used her and took us with him. We published on shallow sand bodies

along different bank margins, in the process defining bank margins based on the “net

energy flux”. That term stuck with me. Mark had cruises, and then it was my turn. I did

something different. I was following Al’s lead - sand bodies at bank margins. I decided to

use Calanus as a drill platform. And so I did. In two cruises to western Little Bahama Bank I

was able to sink 18 rock cores into the margin penetrating 3 distinct lithostratigraphic

sequences. Conrad was there, advising (pestering?) me on deck and under water.

Eventually I was on my own - my first real experience as The Chief. With the modern

Holocene sequence I had the last four sea-level highstands - each running to the

characteristic “composite-ooid grainstone” facies. “Reefs No, Sands Yes!” The work was

published in abstracts and presented at meetings. It is still awaiting a proper publication.

It was during this time of both sea-going work and lab work that I sought to establish some

distance between Conrad and myself.This is not unusual in the mentor/student relationship

as the student becomes more independent. I had watched this with others. Because

Conrad was such a forward thinker this was both important and difficult. In working through

a Ph.D it is very important to be able to say: “This was my work, idea to publication,

sea-going and lab, mine!”. At this time (late 70’s) I was more or less alone. Al had gone to

USF, Hank to Moss Landing and Mark to Brazil. Robin had set up his own petrographic lab

at home. Stan was down the hall. But I was welded door-to-door with Conrad. We had rows.

And we were both hard-headed enough to actually yell and scream in the hallway at

Venable. Others in the department would hear us and rate our performance! Chris Martins

took me aside and provided some insight (“this is such a short time in your life/career”, “trust

me, Conrad trusts you”) and after that the yelling stopped. Conrad ultimately understood

this desire to be seen as a colleague vs a student. It was ever his feeling with Bob

Ginsburg… In the end I defended my dissertation by “standing on the data” which is where

Conrad always told us we should stand. My graduate time with Conrad ended with

graduation 1981.

After that I saw Conrad at meetings - very irregularly. We published a couple things. I went

on cruises with the new “Grad Rats of Venable Hall” (Ken Rasmussen, Steve Boss) and

found myself comparing notes with them about Conrad. One thing was always clear:

Conrad's method of handling graduate students produced very good carbonate scientists!

The one thing that I got from Conrad that no-one else did was the passion for sailing that

came with his A-boat stories. The impossibility of doing Oceanography hove-to, under sail.

In cartoons seen here and others not present, he has shown various aspects of life on the

A-boat - even to the gimballed dining experience! And so when the opportunity came to sail

as Chief on the R/V Westward I jumped. (See Pics.) Not exactly the career path that

everyone expected but I sailed and taught for 10 years. I learned how to do Oceanography

under sail. Just like Conrad 30 years before. I was immensely proud of that

accomplishment. So did Conrad and I sit and lift a pint and swap tales of the Atlantis and

the Westward ? No we did not. I drifted away from nearly all my buddies from Venable Hall.

Eventually I was able to find a bunch of that missing mud along the slope of western Great

Bahamas in cruises conducted in the late 80’s-early 90’s. I used surface vessels, seismics,

and a submersible - all in direct lineage from what I learned with Conrad. Conrad was not

with me, Ken Rassmusen was. In Wilber, Milliman and Halley, 1990 and Milliman,

Friele,Steinen, and Wilber, 1993 we reported on the mud. And it was clear that our work

was sourced in Neumann and Land, 1975.

The last time I saw Conrad was in San Salvador at a Symposium on Bahamian Island

Geology. Ever the labeller, he had dubbed me a “morpho-stratigrapher” for Little San

Salvador and West Plana Cay. In the last few years I had learned he had retired to Martha’s

Vineyard. Ironically that is just “8 miles away” from where I live. The same distance from

Durham to Chapel Hill. The same distance we bridged when we first connected. In other

tributes here I see stories of much greater continuity - personal and professional - with

Conrad well after graduate school. And the associations are alway fruitful. I regret not

having seen Conrad for the last 25 years. That seems impossible. But what he taught me

and the passion he instilled is with me still. I somehow think that he may have approved of

“that guy who went sailing.” The guy who found the mud.

Notes on the cartoons: Amazingly I still have some cartoons from my days in the lab at

Venable. These were “drafts” or extras that Conrad gave me. As I looked through the

cartoons displayed here two things happened.

First, I was surprised to see a large-scale rendering of the past-to-peloid micro-sequence

that is found in geopetal fills in cavities in the lithotherm/hardground rocks. This

micro-sequence was the key to gradational lithification of rocks in current swept slope

environments throughout the northern Bahamas. This was my most important discovery

while demonstrating my skill as a petrologust to Conrad. I had done the original of this

cartoon in my masters thesis and then it appeared in publication. But I had not seen this

rendering. Where mine had been tortuous and too small this was a gorgeous drawing that

was faithful in all detail. This even has the “moldic” quality that allowed us to argue “paste”. I

wondered: why didn't we use this one? And then, in two other big-picture cartoons, this

sequence is prominently displayed. I simply did not know that Conrad had thought so much

about this after I had left. But he had and had taken what was primarily a small-scale

observation and expanded it into Bigger Picture applications. Like I said, he thought through

cartoons.

The second thing that occurred to me was how much like Conrad I had become. Did I do

great cartoons? No, but as a teacher I had come to a lecture style that was all about the

“flowing blackboards''. I use multicolored sidewalk chalk and I would develop a drawing very

ACN-like to show my students how the Geostrophic Currents are spun-up from first forcing

functions. Or how the ocean basins open and close. I found that these blackboards were

never quite the same - and that I THOUGHT through my topics each time. I had forgotten

until I read Mark Boardman’s tribute that ACN did this very same thing 30 years earlier!!

And as with ACN I was, in my teaching circles, somewhat famous for these flowing

blackboards. Amazing.

I am glad that I have been able to think back and, now, properly acknowledge all the ways

that Conrad Neumann influenced my life-path. “How’s your ass, Connie?” I trust you are

doing well.

R/V Atlantis

R/V Westward