Douglas Saxon Coombs CNZM (23 November 1924 – 23 December 2016) was a New Zealand mineralogist and petrologist.
Doug Coombs CNZM | |
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Born | Douglas Saxon Coombs (1924-11-23)23 November 1924 Dunedin, New Zealand |
Died | 23 December 2016(2016-12-23) (aged 92) Dunedin, New Zealand |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
Awards | Hector Medal (1969) Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2002) |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of Otago |
Thesis | Incipient metamorphism of the tuffs and greywackes of the Taringatura Survey District, Southland, New Zealand; Studies on the determination of low-temperature alkali feldspars (1952) |
Born in Dunedin in 1924[1] and educated at King's High School,[2] Coombs attended the University of Otago, graduating with an MSc with first-class honours in 1948.[3][4] He then studied at the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD in 1952.
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.[5]
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.[6]
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1962,[7] and in 1969 he won the society's Hector Medal,[8] at that time New Zealand's highest science prize. He received the Mineralogical Society of America Award in 1963.[9] In the 2002 New Year Honours, Coombs was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to mineralogy.[10]
A right-hand batsman and leg-break bowler, Coombs played cricket for Otago in the 1942–43 season.[1]
Coombs died in Dunedin on 23 December 2016.[11]
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National libraries |
Recipients of the Hector Medal of the Royal Society of New Zealand | |
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