Doug Coombs (geologist)

Douglas Saxon Coombs CNZM (23 November 1924 – 23 December 2016) was a New Zealand mineralogist and petrologist.

Doug Coombs

CNZM
Born
Douglas Saxon Coombs

(1924-11-23)23 November 1924
Dunedin, New Zealand
Died23 December 2016(2016-12-23) (aged 92)
Dunedin, New Zealand
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
SpouseAnne Tarrant
Children3
RelativesKen Saxon (uncle)
AwardsHector Medal (1969)
Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2002)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Otago
ThesisIncipient metamorphism of the tuffs and greywackes of the Taringatura Survey District, Southland, New Zealand; Studies on the determination of low-temperature alkali feldspars (1952)

Early life and family

Born in the Dunedin suburb of St Clair on 23 November 1924, Coombs was the son of architect Leslie Douglas Coombs and Nellie Vera von Tunzelmann Coombs (née Saxon), and the nephew of Ken Saxon.[1][2][3][4] He was educated at King's High School,[5] and played cricket for Otago in the 1942–43 season as a right-hand batsman and leg-break bowler.[2]

Coombs went on to study at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946 and Master of Science with first-class honours in 1948.[6][7][8] He then studied at the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD in 1952.

Career

First appointed an assistant lecturer in geology at Otago in 1947, Coombs became a professor in 1956. He retired in 1989 and was granted the title of professor emeritus.[9]

Coombs was noted for his studies of the rocks of the southern South Island of New Zealand. The mineral species coombsite, K(Mn2+, Fe2+, Mg)13(Si, Al)18O42(OH)14, is named for him.[10]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1962,[11] and in 1969 he won the society's Hector Medal,[12] at that time New Zealand's highest science prize. He received the Mineralogical Society of America Award in 1963.[13] In the 2002 New Year Honours, Coombs was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to mineralogy.[14]

Personal life

Coombs and his wife Anne (née Tarrant) had two sons and a daughter. He died in Dunedin on 23 December 2016, aged 92.[15]

See also

References
  1. "Birth". Otago Daily Times. No. 19336. 24 November 1924. p. 6. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  2. "Doug Coombs". CricketArchive. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  3. "Marriages". Evening Star. No. 14897. 8 June 1912. p. 4. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  4. Megget, Anne; Lyall-Coombes Denniston, Margie (2007). Nailsea families – Coombs: a link with New Zealand (PDF). Nailsea & District Local History Society. p. 24. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  5. "Scholarship results". New Zealand Herald. 23 January 1943. p. 4. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  6. "Graduation ceremony". Otago Daily Times. No. 26152. 15 May 1946. p. 7. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  7. "NZ university graduates 1870–1961: Co–Cu". Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  8. Coombs, Douglas Saxon (1947), The geology of the northern part of the Taringatura survey district (Master's thesis), OUR Archive, hdl:10523/3348, Wikidata Q111966001
  9. "History of the Department of Geology". University of Otago. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  10. Handbook of Mineralogy (PDF). Mineral Data Publishing. 2001.
  11. "The Academy: A–C". Royal Society of New Zealand. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  12. "Hector Medal". Royal Society of New Zealand. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  13. Switzer, George (March–April 1963). "Proceedings of the 43rd annual meeting of the Mineralogical Society of America at Houston, Texas" (PDF). American Mineralogist. 48: 465. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  14. "New Year honours list 2002". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 31 December 2001. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  15. "Douglas Coombs death notice". Dominion Post. 24 December 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
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