ALFRED L. BUSH U.S. Geological Survey (retired), Denver, Colorado 80225

With contributions from ROBERT A. CAD I GAN, WILLIAM D. CARTER, FRED W. CATER, WARREN I. FINCH, HAROLD KIRKEMO, PHILIP B. MUDGETT,

and DANIEL R. SHAWE

Richard P. (Dick) Fischer, officially a member of the U.S.Geological Survey from 1937 to 1974, and unofficially a member of the Survey family for the rest of his life, died of heart and respiratory failure at the age of 81 on September 18, 1991, in Grand Junction, Colorado. He was a world- recognized authority on the geology and resources of ura­nium and vanadium, and the father of the massive and intensive USGS Colorado Plateau uranium project.

Dick was bom in Marietta, Ohio, on July 2, 1910, to Daisy (Elliott) and Harry P. Fischer, a professional photog­rapher. After Marietta High School graduation in 1928, he earned a B.A. degree in geology from Ohio Wesleyan Uni­versity in 1932, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in geology from Princeton University in 1934 and 1936, respectively.He worked briefly with the Newfoundland Geological Sur­vey in 1936 and then began his long and distinguished career in the U.S. Geological Survey in May 1937.

In those days, the Survey selected its appointees from the famous (and infamous) civil ser­vice examination in geology. Virtually all seniors and graduate students took the exam for what was then called the P -l and P-2 rating (junior geologist and assistant geologist). Competition was very stiff because 1937 was the midst of the Great Depression. That year the Survey hired two geologists for the entire Geologic Branch (now called the Geologic Division), and Dick was one of them.

His first assignment was helping Dave Andrews, plane-table mapping in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming for the Fuels Section; his second job was assisting Ed McKnight in the study of the Picher Pb-Zn district, Oklahoma and Kansas, from 1937 through early 1941.

His lifelong association with the Colorado Plateau began in 1934 with his graduate studies of the sedimentary-rock-hosted deposits of copper, vanadium-uranium, and silver in the South­west. In 1937 in his third published paper he advanced the idea that the vanadium-uranium ores were syngenetic in terms of the concentration of elemental metals and in deposition of the beds, but epigenetic in terms of deposition of present-day ore minerals. He always thought that the deposits were formed very shortly after the deposition of the sedimentary rocks in which they are found. These concepts were borne out later by detailed studies by others in the 1970s and 1980s, using sophisticated isotopic and geochemical techniques not available to him. His detailed descriptions of the habits and environments of the deposits on the Colorado Plateau led him to the concept of the Uravan Mineral Belt and thus to the discovery of numerous deposits by the mining industry and to the identification of other belts of deposits in Utah and New Mex­ico by federal and industry geologists.

Memorial to Richard Philip Fischer1910-1991

57

58 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Concurrently with the Picher district study (1939-1941), he returned to head the Colorado- Utah vanadium project as part of the Strategic Minerals Program. Throughout the war years (1941-1945) he was in charge of the Colorado Plateau vanadium project, with greater emphasis after May 1944 on the uranium component at the request of the Manhattan Engineering District (better known as the Manhattan Project). Earlier, in 1942, he had reported on the world’s ura­nium resources for the Office of Scientific Research and Development. At one stage of his wartime studies of uranium, he was prohibited by the government, overly intent on security, from borrowing from the library one of his own publications! The Colorado Plateau work was interrupted in 1945 by an assignment in Germany for the Intelligence Section of the Army Corps of Engineers, European Theater of Operations (ETO), to study German ore supplies and the use of vanadium, uranium, niobium, lead, and zinc; the engineering geology of underground bunkers and factories; and, in addition, military geology functions and personnel. During one of the Survey’s financial hard times, he supervised preparation of Missouri River Basin maps showing metallic mineral resources (1945-1946). In 1946 he was part of the Canyon Ferry, Montana, mapping project, along with J. B. Mertie and S. W. Hobbs, which preceded the build­ing of the Canyon Ferry Dam that impounds Canyon Ferry Lake.

From 1947 through 1954, Dick’s main field of study was the uranium-vanadium deposits of the Colorado Plateau and, later, worldwide. Through 1954 he supervised exploratory drilling, geologic mapping, and topical studies for uranium resources and assessment on the Colorado Plateau, sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission. By the end of 1954 approximately 180 people were assigned to the Colorado Plateau project; through 1958, nearly 500 people had been employed at one time or another. From 1954 through 1974, he conducted studies of the geology and resources of both uranium and vanadium, with emphasis on vanadium commodity studies after 1964. As a result of his vanadium commodity studies, he predicted that titaniferous mag­netite deposits might become the world’s main source of vanadium, a forecast now realized. This period was interrupted by a stint of mapping, sampling, and resource assessment for the Wilderness Program in the Uncompahgre Primitive Area and for the Heavy Metals Program in the northwest San Juan Mountains, both in Colorado.

Dick received the Interior Department’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in1973 and retired at the end of June 1974. He was the senior author of 52 and coauthor of 12 additional published reports, author of ten and coauthor of two abstracts, and author of 51 and coauthor of three administrative, open-file, and classified reports.

In October 1987, Dick was honored at the first reunion of the Colorado Plateau project, 40 years after its inception. He was awarded the Leather Medal with Grand Junction Dangle, and an appropriate scroll, in recognition of his longevity and steadfastness in dealing with Washing­ton throughout the Atomic Energy Commission-entangled days. Balancing all the conflicting aims required self-control, tact, and survival instincts.

He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and of the Society of Economic Geologists, a member of the American Institute of Petroleum Geologists, Colorado Mining Association, Colorado Scientific Society, and Geological Society of Washington, D.C., and a member and first president of the Grand Junction (Colorado) Geological Society.

Dick and Mary L. Barry were married in Grand Junction in 1952, beginning a union that lasted for 33 years, until she passed away in 1985. He is survived by his son and daughter-in- law, Michael and Jill, by his daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and Jack Byrne, and by two grandchildren, Jeff and Kelley. He was active both in church work in Lakewood, Colorado, and later in Grand Junction, Colorado, and in the Boy Scouts of America.

He was compassionate and loyal to his friends and co-workers and had a dry sense of humor. Although a perfectionist, he tried to be as practical as possible about everyday prob­lems. Colleagues have commented on his essential fairness; he was a model of probity, a keenly

MEMORIAL TO RICHARD PHILIP FISCHER 59

perceptive scientist with an analytical mind and very high standards; he was highly esteemed byhis colleagues and was dedicated to the welfare of the Survey. We have benefited from his pres­ence; we are poorer for his passing.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF R. P. FISCHER1936 Peculiar hydrothermal copper-bearing veins of the northeastern Colorado Plateau:

Economic Geology, v. 31, p. 571-599.1937 Sedimentary deposits of copper, vanadium-uranium, and silver in southwestern

United States: Economic Geology, v. 32, p. 906-951.1942 Vanadium deposits of Colorado and Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 936-P,

p. 363-394.1944 Map of the vanadium region of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah:

U.S. Geological Survey Strategic Minerals Investigations Preliminary Map, with text. Second edition (1949) issued as Strategic Minerals Investigations Preliminary Map 3-226, scale 1:187,500.

1945 (with Stokes, W. L.) Vanadium deposits in the Gateway area, Mesa County, Colorado, and the adjoining part of Grand County, Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Strategic Minerals Investigations Preliminary Map 3-173, with text, scale 1:63,360.

1947 Deposits of vanadium-bearing sandstone, in Vanderwilt, J. W., ed., Mineral resources of Colorado: Denver, State of Colorado Mineral Resources Board, p. 451-456.

------ (and Haff, J. C., and Rominger, J. F.) Vanadium deposits near Placerville, San MiguelCounty, Colorado: Colorado Scientific Society Proceedings, v. 15, p. 117-134.

1948 (with Stokes, W. L., Phoenix, D. A., and Smith, L. E.) Geology of the Egnar-Gypsum Valley area, San Miguel and Montrose Counties, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations Preliminary map 93, with text, scale 1:48,000.

1950 Uranium-bearing sandstone deposits of the Colorado Plateau: Economic Geology, v. 45, p. 1-11.

1951 (with Mertie, J. B., and Hobbs, S. W.) Geology of the Canyon Ferry quadrangle, Montana: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 972, 97 p.

1952 (and Hilpert, L. S.) Geology of the Uravan mineral belt: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 988-A, p. 1-13.

1956 Uranium-vanadium-copper deposits on the Colorado Plateau: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 300, p. 143-154.

1959 Vanadium and uranium in rocks and ore deposits, in Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Colorado Plateau uranium ores: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 320, p. 219-230.

------ (with Botinelly, Theodore), Mineralogy and geology of the Rifle and Garfield mines,Garfield County, Colorado, in Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Colorado Plateau uranium ores: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 320, p. 213-218.

1960 (and Stewart, J. H.) Distribution and lithologic characteristics of sandstone beds that contain deposits of copper, vanadium, and uranium, in Geological Survey Research 1960: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 400-B, p. B42-B44.

------ Vanadium-uranium deposits of the Rifle Creek area, Garfield County, Colorado: U.S.Geological Survey Bulletin 1101,52 p.

1961 (and Stewart, J. H.) Copper, vanadium, and uranium deposits in sandstone—Their distri­bution and geochemical cycles: Economic Geology, v. 56, p. 509-520.

1962 Vanadium in the United States, exclusive of Alaska and Hawaii: U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Investigations Resource Map MR-16, scale 1:3,168,000.

1968 The uranium and vanadium deposits of the Colorado Plateau region, in Ore deposits of the United States, 1933-1967 (Graton-Sales volume), Volume 1: New York, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, p. 735-746.

------ (and Fisher, F. S.) Interpreting pan-concentrate analyses of stream sediments ingeochemical exploration for gold: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 592, 9 p.

------ (and Luedke, R. G., Sheridan, M J., and Raabe, R. G.) Mineral resources of the Uncom-pahgre primitive area, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1261-C, p. C1-C91.

1970 (with McKnight, E. T.) Geology and ore deposits of the Picher Field, Oklahoma and Kansas: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 588,165 p.

------ Similarities, differences, and some genetic problems of the Wyoming and ColoradoPlateau types of uranium deposits in sandstone: Economic Geology, v. 65, no. 7, p. 778-784.

1973 Vanadium, in Brobst, D. A., and Pratt, W. P., eds., United States mineral resources:U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 820, p. 679-688.

1974 Exploration guides to new uranium districts and belts: Economic Geology, v. 69, p. 362-376.

1975 Geology and resources of base-metal vanadate deposits: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 926-A, p. A1-A14.

------Vanadium resources in titaniferous magnetite deposits: U.S. Geological SurveyProfessional Paper 926-B, p. B1-B10.

------ (with Finch, W. I., Butler, A. P., Jr., Masters, C. D., and Stead, F. W.) Discussion ofuranium availability and the breeder decision: Energy Systems and Policy, v. 1, no. 3, p. 259-269.

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