Jon Kalb

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Jon Kalb with an Afar chief
Jon Kalb
Born(1941-08-17)17 August 1941
Died27 October 2017(2017-10-27) (aged 76)

Jon Kalb August 17, 1941 (Houston, Texas) - October 27, 2017 (Austin, Texas) was a research geologist with the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory (Texas Memorial Museum), University of Texas at Austin. He received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory in 1968, a graduate fellowship from Johns Hopkins University in 1969, and a BSc from American University in 1970.[1]

Early experience

As a teenager Kalb began his career with a Mexican-American expedition searching for early shipwrecks off the coast of the

Yucatan.[2][page needed] He later joined famed treasure hunter and marine archeologist Bob Marx exploring reefs in the Caribbean.[3]

Sidelined by injuries from diving, Kalb was sent to the west coast of

Awash Valley
in the central and western Afar.

Discoveries

Kalb was a founder of the International Afar Research Expedition.[9][10] Donald Johanson found the 3.2 million year old Lucy skeleton.[11] Kalb started the Rift Valley Research Mission.[11] Kalb was later director of the Ethiopia-based mission that pioneered explorations in the Middle Awash, revealing some of the most prolific deposits bearing early hominin fossils and artifacts in the world.

late Pliocene with the earliest stone tools to late Pleistocene sites containing pottery.[17][18] In a 2010 publication Kalb proposed that the land of Punt—a trading partner with ancient Egypt—was situated in the central Afar, a short trek from the Gulf of Tadjura.[19]

Conflicts

After Kalb established a model-training program for Ethiopian students, and the first paleobiology research laboratory in the country, he was expelled from Ethiopia in mid-1978 amid fabricated allegations he spied for the

CIA.[20] In 1977 the U.S. National Science Foundation declined funds to Kalb's team based on these same charges, as revealed by documents he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.[21] A year later he won a court stipulated settlement with NSF concluding that he was denied a fair hearing under the Privacy Act.[22] A year later he successfully petitioned NSF under the First Amendment to reform its peer review system.[23]

Recent years

Following more trips to Africa—joining teams with the USGS, the Technical University of Berlin, and the University of Vienna—Kalb renewed surveys for Eocene mammals begun in the 1930s along the remote borderlands of West Texas.[24] Described as the “American Afar,” the region is hot, wild, and minced by faults of the Rio Grande rift with parallels to the “African Afar.” To date the area has produced over 4000 extinct mammals, including some of the last known primates in North America.[25]

Awards

  • Robert W. Hamilton Award. University of Texas at Austin. For non-fiction, Adventures in the Bone Trade, 2002
  • Violet Crown Award, Writers League of Texas. For non-fiction, Adventures in the Bone Trade, 2001.
  • Court Stipulated Settlement, Kalb vs National Science Foundation. D.D.C., Civ. No. 86-3557, 8 December 1987.

Selected bibliography

Fiction

  • Kalb, Jon. 2007. The Gift: Discovery, Treachery, and Revenge. Special Delivery Books, Alpine, Texas. Reviewed in Nature 451: 128.

References

  1. ^ The Expedition School. "Jon Kalb". The Expedition School. Archived from the original on 2011-08-13. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  2. ^ Blair Jr., Clay (1960). Diving for Treasure and Pleasure. Cleveland: World Publishing.
  3. ^ Marx, Robert F. (1967). Always Another Adventure. Cleveland: World Publishing Co.
  4. doi:10.1080/00221347108981626
    .
  5. ^ U.S. National Science Foundation (1970). "Results of the Southeast Pacific". R/V Anton Bruun. Cruise 18 A and B.
  6. ^ Fargher, Malcolm (1968). "United Nations Mineral Survey. Phase II. Interim report. Geology of the Demerara bend area". Guyana Geological.
  7. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0270-32
    .
  8. S2CID 4177313
    .
  9. ^ Taieb, M.; Coppens Y.; Johanson, D.C.; Kalb, J. (1972). "Dépôts sédimentaires et faunes du Plio-pléistocéne de la basse vallée de l'Awash". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 275D: 819–822.
  10. ^ Taieb, M.; Coppens Y.; Johanson, D.C.; Kalb, J (1974). "Dépôts sédimentaires et faunes du Plio-pléistocéne de la basse vallée de l'Awash". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 275D: 819–822.
  11. ^ a b Johanson, D.C. (1981). Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  12. S2CID 4314983
    .
  13. S2CID 4352959
    .
  14. doi:10.1006/jhev.1996.0021
    .
  15. doi:10.1126/science.326.5949.36
    .
  16. S2CID 134882326
    .
  17. ^ Kalb, J.E.; Jolly, C. J.; Oswald, E. B.; Whitehead, P (1984). "Early hominid habitation in Ethiopia". American Scientist. 72: 168–178.
  18. S2CID 4238437
    .
  19. ^ Kalb, Jon (2010). "Awsa and Punt: Into the mix". Nyame Akuma. 71: 31–34.
  20. ^ "Suit on rumor of tie to C.I.A. brings apology to geologist". New York Times. December 5, 1987.
  21. ^ Bell, Robert (1992). Impure Science: Fraud, Compromise, and Political influence in Scientific Research. Wiley.
  22. PMID 3120315
    .
  23. ^ Raloff, Janet (April 14, 1990). "Revamping peer review: the National Science Foundation will allow more peering into its reviews". Science News.
  24. doi:10.2475/ajs.246.2.78
    .
  25. ^ Wilson, John Andrew (1977). "Stratigraphic occurrence and correlation of early Tertiary vertebrate faunas, Trans-Pecos, Texas. Part 1: Vieja Area". Texas Memorial Museum Bulletin. 25: 1–42.

External links

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