William R. Dickinson

The Arizona Geological Society's 2007 Symposium, "Ores and Orogenesis: Circum-Pacific Tectonics, Geologic Evolution, and Ore Deposits" is dedicated to the career of William R. Dickinson. Bill is one of the leaders in the field of plate tectonics, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a former Chair of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona, where he has been Professor Emeritus since 1991. Bill co-organized the pioneering AGS symposium in 1981 on Relations of Tectonics to Ore Deposits in the Southern Cordillera, the proceedings of which were published as AGS Digest 14. Bill also co-edited AGS Digest 18, Mesozoic Rocks of Southern Arizona and Adjacent Areas.

Bill was born and raised in Tennessee and moved to California as a teenager. He earned all three of his degrees from Stanford University: a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering (1952), M.S. and Ph.D. in Geology (1956, 1958). Bill served as an officer in the US Air Force from 1952-1954 and was a faculty member at Stanford University (1958-1979) and the University of Arizona (1979-1991). Bill was principal advisor to approximately 85 graduate students.

Appropriately, much of the circum-Pacific region has been Bill's field area. He has conducted research on eugeoclinal sedimentary rocks in Oregon and Fiji, the San Andreas transform system in California and Baja California, the Ouachita flysch sequence in the south-central United States, the tectonic assembly and fragmentation of Mexico, the stratigraphy and structure of forearc regions of New Zealand and Japan, sandstone petrofacies of circum-Pacific arc-trench systems, the evolution of sedimentary basins of the central Rocky Mountains, the sedimentary and structural history of Cordilleran metamorphic core complexes in Arizona, the geomorphic and geodynamic evolution of the Cook-Austral island-seamount chain in the South Pacific Ocean, and the record of Holocene changes in relative sea level on tropical Pacific islands. Bill also has made substantive contributions to the geoarcheology of the South Pacific as deduced from temper sands in prehistoric potsherds.

Although Bill is best most known for his papers on plate tectonics and sedimentary petrology, he has interacted extensively with members of the resource industry throughout his career. He has taught professional short courses to industry and contributed papers on topics such as Tectonic setting of the Great Basin through geologic time: Implications for metallogeny.

Bill's service to the profession has included being President of the Geological Society of America, initial Chair of the Geological Sciences Board on Earth Sciences of the National Research Council, and chair of the U. S. Geodynamics Committee. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1965, the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1991, election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1992, the Sloss Award of the Geological Society of America in 1999, and the SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) Twenhofel Medal in 2000.

Bill continues to be exceptionally active in his retirement in Tucson, Arizona, where he lives with his wife Jacqueline (Jackie) Dickinson, a constant companion and inspiration.

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