Roger Cooper: paleobiologist and geologist

Abstract

Roger Cooper (1939–2020) was one of the pre-eminent New Zealand paleontologists and geologists of the twentieth century. As with many scientists of his generation, he developed a broad suite of skills and his research ranged widely – a testament to his talents but also a function of the small number of Earth scientists studying New Zealand’s complex geology. Although he always understood that science builds on a foundation of careful observation and description – and he made huge contributions in this regard – he also sought and applied innovative analytical approaches. Roger was open, kind and generous as a mentor, colleague, collaborator and manager. The present collection of papers pays homage to the many ways that Roger’s research advanced understanding of Zealandia’s geological history and wider questions in paleobiology, and several of these papers are written by people whose careers were enriched by their interactions with Roger. Accurate and precise field observation underpins much of Earth science. Roger knew this, but for him field work was also an opportunity to rejuvenate mind and body and immerse himself in the living world; his joy of life always shone brightest when he was in the field. As a second-year geology undergraduate student at Victoria University of Wellington, he was fortunate to join Gerald Lensen of the New Zealand Geological Survey (now GNS Science) for a threemonth expedition to produce a geological map of the Clarence valley area in the South Island (Lensen 1962). The field work was challenging but hugely educational for Roger; in his own, understated words, ‘I was a pretty raw second year student when we started and learned a lot from the experience’ (Roger Cooper, written pers. comm. 2017; see obituary by Crampton, Beu, et al. 2020a). The paper herein by Crampton (2023) revisits the geology of the northern Clarence valley area, covering a small part of the territory mapped by Roger, and uses new observations of field relationships to interpret the Cretaceous tectonostratigraphic history; these new data bear on the contentious issue of exactly when Mesozoic subduction terminated on the margin of Gondwana. By the time he had finished his PhD, supervised by Harold Wellman, Roger had completed field seasons in the Antarctic, Otago, Southland, and the Golden Bay area, and had spent 18 months on the island of Borneo (Crampton, Beu, et al. 2020). His growing family joined him for field work in the Golden Bay area, based in Magnesite Hut in the Cobb valley. Helicopter trips to remote ridges, caves full of moa bones, and mountain lakes and streams kept children happy and formed their long-lasting affinities with the New Zealand bush and upland country. Roger’s Borneo jungle experience equipped him with a range of distinctive long-distance bush communication calls, his faithful parang (a type of machete made from a car leaf spring), and the ability to make a fire under any conditions, all of which translated well to New Zealand fieldwork. He would return from each long day to apply methylated spirits liberally to sunburns and indulge in a glass of Old Moutere cider with colleagues and students. His son Alan recalls numerous stops to inspect road cuttings, made worthwhile by the barely suppressed excitement when things like corals were discovered unexpectedly in Upper Ordovician sandstone (on the Cobb valley road), and this, in turn, led to Alan’s own passion for field-based science. Roger’s career at the New Zealand Geological Survey began in 1969 and was focussed initially on the taxonomy, biostratigraphy, evolution, biogeography and paleobiology of early Paleozoic fossils in New Zealand. Much of this research was concerned with graptolites (e.g. Cooper 1973, 1979a; Cooper and McLaurin 1974) but, in collaboration with others, his interests quickly expanded to include conodonts, brachiopods, molluscs, trilobites and graptolites from New Zealand, Australia, Antarctica and Spitsbergen (e.g. Cooper and Druce 1975; Shergold et al. 1976). One hallmark of Roger’s career was the lifelong collaborations and friendships he developed with scientists around the world. An early example