A Tribute to Arthur G. Darnley 1930–2006

Abstract

Education provides the passport to life; it is character – created by an indefinable mix of genes, parenting, environment and belief – that charts the course and stages the achievements. Arthur's education was as good as any, but it was his character that led to success. He grew up in wartime and post-war England. I know of no other person, certainly in England at that time, whose university entrance examination included geology. This was not taught at his school, he learned from books and from solo fieldwork. This led to Cambridge University, where he became president of the Sedgwick Club, graduating in geology in 1952. Between school and Cambridge, he served with the Royal Air Force, maintaining aircraft flying the Berlin Airlift. His first job was with Selection Trust as a field geologist in the Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt. There he developed ideas that differed from the conventional views on the origins of these deposits. There was an urge to do more than was possible as a company geologist, so he gathered his rocks and returned to Cambridge for a PhD study. With no economic geology professor at Cambridge, Arthur had to replicate his ‘teach yourself’ experience from school. His 1960 paper on the Copperbelt remains a classic. From Cambridge he moved to London in 1957 to join the British Geological Survey. …