Dedication

Abstract

During the preparation of this volume, William D. “Bill” Grant, one of our dear friends and fellow Coastal Ocean Dynamics Experiment (CODE) scientists, died of cancer on October 7, 1986. Our shock and disbelief have given way to deep sadness as we come to realize his absence. His intelligence, wit, and friendship will be greatly missed.Bill was a gifted scientist whose wisdom, dedication, and boundless energy had led him to a preeminent position in his principal field of research on bottom boundary layers beneath waves and currents. In nine short years, Bill had emerged from the completion of his doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the rank of Senior Scientist in the Department of Ocean Engineering at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. At the time of his death, Bill was recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on the hydrodynamics of bottom boundary layers on continental shelves. Bill enjoyed the application of sound theoretical models to the explanation of geological and oceanographic phenomena observed in the marine environment. His scientific interests spanned a broad range of topics including the nature and structure of turbulent bottom boundary layers in both shallow continental shelf regions like CODE and deep oceanic domains like the High Energy Benthic Boundary Layer Experiment (HEBBLE), and the role that these bottom layers have in affecting both oceanic circulation and sediment transport patterns. Bill had the unique ability to generate physically realistic models which he then tested through intensive field investigations. He was at once a theoretician, laboratory experimentalist, and seagoing ocean scientist, and he excelled in all areas of his research.