An appreciation of Daniel Robert Boyle, and an introduction to the special issue of Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis in his honour

Abstract

Daniel Robert Boyle,our friend and colleague, died on 29 June 2000, in Ottawa, Canada, at the age of 52 after a courageous battle with cancer. Dan was a leader at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in the application of lithogeochemistry, and groundwater geochemistry for the study of mineral deposit genesis, mineral exploration, environmental and health issues. He was the son of the (recently deceased: 5 August 2003) internationally renowned and respected geochemist Bob(Robert W.) Boyle, who was also employed at the GSC (Garrett 2004). Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Dan spent many happy summers travelling with his family to places across Canada, notably New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where his father's fieldwork took him. These experiences instilled in Dan and his sister Heather a love for the sciences and the outdoors that shaped both their future careers: Dan following in his father's footsteps as a geochemist, while Heather, the family radical, became a biochemist (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada and Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand). Dan completed a BSc honours degree at Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, with a thesis entitled “Geochemical environmental study over a Cu–Mo porphyry deposit, British Columbia”. He continued his education at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, London, UK. He graduated with a PhD in 1976, and his thesis was entitled “The geochemistry of fluorine and its application in mineral exploration“. During his studies in the UK, he completed several mineral exploration consulting contracts in Spain, France, Ireland, Turkey, and Great Britain. During the latter part of his PhD studies, he became a member of the Mineral Industry Research Organization review board of Great Britain. While at Imperial College, Dan became an associate professor, and later (1975) head of the mineral exploration research section of the applied geochemistry …