RESEARCH WORK IN GEOLOGY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26362, 5 March 1951, Page 6

RESEARCH WORK IN GEOLOGY

PROFESSOR W. N. BENSON HONOURED .

The remarkable contribution to geology knowledge in New Zealand made by Professor W. N. Benson, F.R.S.. who for 34 years was professor of geology at Otago University, was praised by the Chancellor (the Very Rev. Dr. D. C. Herron) when the University Council appointed him emeritps professor in geology. Professor Benson retired from active teaching in the university last year, and has since been research professor in geology. A minute of appreciation of Professpr Benson’s work adopted by the council said that he £ad served the university with uncommon distinction. His outstanding characteristic had been a sustained passion for research. Early in his career he wrote papers which had become classics on the palaeogeography of the Indo-Pacific region. To the intricate science of petrology he had made a notable contribution in his study of the Ordovician rocks of eastern Otago. In 1947 he gave fresh evidence of his flair by discovering -in north-west Nelson some Middle Cambrian rocks containing fossils of greater age than any previously known m New Zealand. “Professor Benson is still engaged on a massive memoir, eagerly awaited by his colleagues, on the geology of the Dunedin district,” said the minute. The quality of these and other researches has long since earned him a world-wide reputation among geologists. He wears the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London, the Hector and Hutton Medals of the New Zealand Royal Society, and the Clarke Medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, ana he has for many years enjoyed the highest scientific distinction in the British Commonwealth—the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London.”