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JOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
Novem her Z 6, 1905-A ugust 12, Z968
BY HAROLD L. TAMES
DEEP IN THE HEART of Antarctica is a huge windswept plateau
that bears the name Mackin Table. It was mapped and so
designated by four of Hoover Mackin's former students—Dwight
Schmidt, Paul Williams, Willis Nelson, and Arthur Ford—as
a tribute to a great teacher of earth science. It is an impressive
memorial to a man who was a dominant figure in American
geology for more than three decades.
Joseph Hoover Mackin was born November 16, 1905, in
Oswego, in upstate New York. He was the youngest of seven
children of William David Mackin and Catherine Hoover
Mackin. His father, who died when Hoover was only seven years
old, was of Irish descent, his mother of German descent. Despite
the early death of his father and despite the fact that he spent
two years immobilized in a cast after being stricken with polio-
myelitis at the age of four, Hoover's early years quite evidently
were happy ones as the youngest child in a-closely knit family.
He outgrew the effects of his childhood illness and developed
into a powerfully built youth of great energy. He played
football—as a lineman—both at Oswego High School and Oswego
Normal School, and between studies and sports he still found
time to work at various dons.
After graduation from Oswego High School in 1924 and two
years at Oswego Normal School, the young Mackin left upper
249
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250
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
New York State to enter New York University. Init
tally, he
intended to become a journalist, but switched from journalism
to geology after hearing lectures by Professor George I. Finley.
He received the B.S. degree in geology from NYU in 1930 and
then entered the graduate school of Columbia University. His
professed major interest at that time was in petrology, but he
soon came under the stimulating influence of Professors Douglas
Johnson and William Morris Davis, leading American teachers
of the science of landforms. From then on, Mackin's course was
set: He would become a geomorphologist. He was granted the
M.A. degree by Columbia in 1932 and the Ph.D. in 1936.
In 1929, at the start of the Great Depression, Mackin was
married to Esther Fisk, daughter of longtime friends of the
Mackin family in Oswego. In the years following, as a student,
he worked at many odd jobs—in a telegraph office, as a painter,
as a sandhog in subway construction, and as a tutor. In 1933,
however, the young couple achieved a considerable level of
affluence as the result of the award to Mackin of a $1,600 fel-
lowship.
In 1934, after completing all requirements for the doctorate
at Columbia other than a thesis, Mackin accepted an appoint-
ment as an instructor at the University of Washington, there
to begin a distinguished career as a teacher that was to span
thirty-four years—twenty-eight years at Washington and six
years as Farish Professor of Geology at the University of Texas
at Austin.
Mackin always considered himself a geomorphologist,
though a glance at his bibliography reveals far greater scope to
his actual research activities. His doctoral thesis dealt with the
origin of surface features of the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming.
In it he introduced the concept of lateral planation by a stream
essentially at grade, producing gravel-mantled terraces as the
stream gradually deepens its valley, as opposed to formation
of terraces by stream dissection of earlier alluvial plains.
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JOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
251
Mackin's further analysis led to publication in 1948 of what is
the most well-known of his contributions to geomorphology,
the classic paper, "Concept of the Graded River." In this paper
Mackin refers to "the almost telegraphic rapidity with which
the first phases of reaction of a graded stream to a number of
artificial changes are propagated upvalley and downvalley"—a
warning of profound importance to stream engineers. In later
pages of the same paper, Mackin makes the warning more
explicit: " . . . the engineer who alters natural equilibrium
relations by diversion or damming or channel-improvement
measures will often find that he has a bull by the tail and is
unable to let go ....
" This statement illustrates both Mackin's
gift for pithy expression and his willingness to extend the
implications of scientific research into the realm of human
affairs.
Throughout his career, Mackin chose to concern himself
with the consequences of man's activities on the natural en-
vironment, and he often exerted a little-known but profound
influence on proposed developments. He became something of a
bete noire to engineers, but to their credit it must be pointed
out that he was called upon often for advice. As a small but
specific example of his influence, he pointed out that the
engineering plan to "save" Ediz Hook, a scenic sandspit on the
north side of the Olympic Peninsula, if put into effect, might
well result in the complete destruction of Ediz Hook in the
next major storm. His private report on the situation resulted
in cancellation of the intended work. Clearly, Hoover Mackin
was an environmentalist before that term was coined.
One of Mackin's earliest papers was written with E. B.
Bailey and based on a brief field trip taken while Mackin was
still a graduate student and the famous British geologist was in
this country on a visit. The paper dealt with the complex fold-
ing in the Pennsylvania Piedmont and the use of b-lineation in
structural analysis. This paper was perhaps the first attempt to
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252
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
apply the concepts of recumbent folding and nappe structure to
geologic interpretation of the Piedmont. Since then, these
concepts have been shown to be widely applicable, even though
the specific area of the Mackin-Bailey paper remains a subject
of controversy, as indicated by Mackin's 1962 "Note" in the
Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. A by-product of
the initial study was Mackin's 1950 paper on the "down struc-
ture" method of viewing and interpreting geologic maps. The
principle employed was not new, but nowhere had it been ex-
pressed so concisely; it remains required reading for the begin-
ning student of structural geology.
In World War II, Mackin became affiliated with the U.S.
Geological Survey, an organization with which he was to retain
close ties for the remainder of his career. As part of the Survey's
wartime emphasis on sources of strategic minerals, Mackin
studied quicksilver deposits near Morton, Washington, and
placer deposits containing radioactive minerals in Idaho. His
major effort, however, which continued after the end of World
War II, was on the iron deposits of the Iron Springs district of
Utah. The results of this study comprise one of the finest con-
tributions to the science of ore deposits of the past three decades.
The first paper, written within the space of a few days as a
guidebook for a Utah Geological Society field conference, almost
surely is the most widely referenced informal publication in
economic geology literature. In it and in later papers, Mackin
demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt precisely where the iron
that forms the major economic deposits of the district came
from, how it was separated from the parent body of intrusive
quartz monzonite, why it was deposited in adjacent limestone in
the particular places now found, and when this process took
place in the igneous and structural history of the area. In the
course of the study, Mackin was to demonstrate that in certain
types of magmatic flow, phenocrysts and inclusions become
oriented normal, rather than parallel, to the direction of magma
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J
FOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
253
movement; a leading authority on granite tectonics ranks the
brief guidebook discussion as the most incisive and definitive
treatment of the subject of magmatic flow in the English-
language literature.
That contributions of such significance to the understanding
of ore deposits and of granite tectonics could be made by one
who classed himself as a geomorphologist, and who disclaimed
any competence as a student of economic geology and igneous
petrology, must seem remarkable to those who did not know
the man. But careful examination of Mackin's papers will reveal
that these scientific advances were achieved by the same kind
of thinking and analysis he had used in assessing the dynamics
of surface processes. The mass of twenty million-year-old quartz
monzonite, the source of the ore fluids, was not in Mackin's
eyes a dead body: He had the imagination necessary to visualize
it during its emplacement as a fluid silicate melt, the ability to
analyze its probable behavior and to predict the likely con-
sequences, and the observational capacity to locate the critical
evidence. Aside from its contribution to granite tectonics, this
study remains perhaps the only documented example in world
literature of the exact genetic relation between an igneous in-
trusion and an associated hydrothermal ore deposit.
Mackin's work in the Iron Springs district led him by pro-
gressive stages, involving several of his students, into the broader
problems of the volcanic and structural history of the Great
Basin of Utah and Nevada. An area of some 3,000 square miles
was mapped at a scale of 1:62,500 or larger, and an additional
7,000 square miles was mapped in reconnaissance. On the basis
of this work, a regional stratigraphy of the ignimbrite sequences
was established using a technique based on quantitative mea-
surement of phenocryst content. Mackin concluded, in agree-
ment with the very early work of Gilbert, that the characteristic
block faulting of the area was due to "dominantly vertical dis-
placements of comparatively rigid blocks," rather than to com-
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254
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
pressive forces, and he suggested that these movements were a
consequence of the withdrawal from depth and surface extrusion
of the estimated 50,000 cubic miles of silicic volcanics. In the
1960 paper in which these views were presented is a promise
of another paper, "to follow shortly," in which the concept was
to be developed more fully; this paper, unfortunately, never ap-
peared.
Mackin's basic philosophy in scientific endeavor is expressed
in his 1963 paper, "Rational and Empirical Methods of Investi-
gation in Geology." In it he reveals a basically traditional
approach—the "rational" method, patterned after G. K. Gilbert,
T. C. Chamberlin, and Douglas Johnson. This method of
problem-solving involves a close interplay between observation
and deductive reasoning, with emphasis on the use of logic to
establish multiple working hypotheses and ultimate definition
of the critical diagnostic data required for choice of conclusions.
Mackin viewed with considerable skepticism what he referred
to as the "empirical" (or "engineering") method, in which
emphasis is laid on accumulation and subsequent treatment of
large amounts of quantitative data. This often has been taken
to mean opposition by Mackin to the quantitative approach in
scientific problems, and perhaps the criticism was justified to
some extent, particularly when applied to his attitude toward
quantification in his own field of specialization, geomorphology.
On occasion he was known to dismiss modern developments in
geomorphologic research as the work of "numerologists." Yet
any examination of Mackin's own research will reveal him to
have been a diligent, careful observer. The geologic maps that
support Mackin's analysis of ore deposition in the Iron Springs
district, for example, are models of detail and accuracy; they are
quantitative to a high degree. Mackin's point, however, is that
geologic problems, lilac those of biology and other complex
sciences, present an almost infinite number of elements sus-
ceptible of measurement, and that the "rational" method is
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JOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
255
necessary to select for observation those that are critical. In
private conversation, Mackin often spoke disparagingly of the
"shotgun" approach to problems, and in his 1963 paper he
quotes with approval James Gilluly's statement that "most ex-
posures provide answers only to questions that are put to them."
Mackin was not basically "antiquantitative"; he simply de-
manded of himself and his students that the data-gathering be
preceded and continually accompanied by intensive logical
analysis of the phenomenon under investigation.
As a teacher of earth science, Mackin was almost without
a peer during his lifetime. His lectures were models of clarity,
and they were delivered with a completely infectious intensity
and enthusiasm, whether given to the beginning freshman class
or to a group of advanced graduate students. He was remarkably
adept at blackboard illustration; with chalk in one hand and
eraser in the other he could truly make geologic processes and
geologic history come to life. He encouraged divergent views—
Provided they were based on good, logical thinking—and de-
testect the mere parroting of textbook or classroom notes. In his
1 ~
famous—infamous, to some—course in map interpretation, he
surprised students continually with an "A" grade for the wrong
answer reached by careful analysis and reasoning, and a "C"
or worse for the right answer based on an inadequate or im-
proper approach. Logical thinking was paramount, and of
necessity the survivor of "map interp" acquired both the ability
to think clearly and a thick skin—valuable assets for his pro-
fessional years ahead. For Mackin could be cutting in criticism,
though always in a way that made it evident that his concern
was for the development of the student.
Mackin was a gregarious man and typically was the center of
discussion croups in the field or at meetings. His views always
. . . .
~~ rid
were expressed crisply, concisely, and with humor. He loved a
good argument and he started many; in one of his papers he
remarks that "it is more important that a working hypothesis
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256
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
be provocative than it be right." He was often on the attack—
but he attacked ideas, not people, and his vigorous and some-
times earthy remarks never left a residue of ill will.
Stories of Mackin's personal idiosyncrasies would fill a book—
everyone who knew him would have contributions. He was a
model train enthusiast and at times had tracks throughout the
living areas of his home. He was fearsome at the wheel of a
car, generally driving with one hand and waving the other as
he analyzed the geomorphology of the rapidly passing terrain to
his terror-stricken passengers. He was the proverbial absent-
minded professor: He habitually lost or mislaid keys, forgot
where he had parked his car, wore mismatched socks (and even
shoes), and left personal items strewn from one end of the
country to the other. But he was a delight to be with; to use
the old cliche, there was never a dull moment when Hoover
Mackin was around.
In addition to teaching and research, Mackin was extremely
active in scientific affairs, even after he was afflicted with cardiac
malfunction in the mid-1960's. He was chairman of the Earth
Sciences Division of the National Research Council from 1963
to 1965; delegate of the National Academy of Sciences to the
1967 meetings of the International Association of Hydrologists
in Istanbul and of the International Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics in Zurich in the same year; and he was the keynote
speaker at the Symposium on Pediments, held in Budapest early
in 1968. He participated actively in the early planning and
design of the lunar geology experiments as a member of the
U.S. Geological Survey team sponsored by the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration, and he initiated the idea
of a sampling tube to be driven into the lunar soil. Throughout
his career Mackin was a sought-after speaker; he was a guest
lecturer at many universities, and he was the Distinguished
Lecturer for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
in 1953 and National Lecturer for Sigma Xi in 1963. Mackin
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JOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
257
was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Geo-
logical Society of America (Council, 1950-1953; chairman of
Cordilleran Section, 1950), the Society of Economic Geologists,
the American Geophysical Union, the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists, the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, and Sigma Xi.
Mackin died on August 12, 1968, at the height of his career
and while preparing to serve as delegate of the U.S. National
Committee on Geolo~v to the International Geological Con-
- A,
gress to be held in Prague later in 1968. He is survived by his
widow, Esther Fisk Mackin; a daughter, Barbara Catherine
Barker, wife of Dr. Daniel Barker, of the geology department of
the University of Texas; a son, Robert Fisk Mackin, a design
engineer; and two granddaughters.
WISH to acknowledge and to express my gratitude to those who have
aided me in the preparation of this memoir: Esther Fisk Mackin
on family details; Arthur B. Ford, Peter B. Rowley, Paul L. Wil-
liams, W. W. Rubey, and John T. Hack on professional aspects;
and Birdena Schroeder, departmental secretary at the University of
Texas, for biographic and bibliographic material.
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258
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Am. l. Sci.—American journal of Science
Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. = Bulletin of the Geological Society of America
J. Geol. - Journal of Geology
U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. = United States Department of the Interior, Geo-
logical Survey, Bulletin
U.S. Geol. Surv. Profess. Paper = United States Department of the Interior,
Geological Survey, Professional Paper
U.S. Geol. Surv. Trace Elem. Memo. Rept. = United States Department of
the Interior, Geological Survey, Trace Elements Memorandum Reports
Wash. Dept. Conserv. Div. Mines Geol. Rept. Invest. = Washington Depart-
ment of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, Report of Investi-
gat~ons
1933
Evolution of the Hudson-Delaware-Suscluehanna drainage. Am.
i. Sci., 5th ser., 26:319-31.
1934
Terraces in the Susquehanna Valley below Harrisburg, Pennsyl-
vania. Science, 80: 140-41.
1935
Problem of the Martic Overthrust and the age of the Glenarm Series
in southeastern Pennsylvania. I. Geol., 43:356-80.
1936
method of mounting maps. Science, 84:233-34.
The capture of the Graybull River. Am. l. Sci., 5th ser., 31:373-85.
Susquehanna River terraces. International Geographical Congress,
Warsaw, 1934, Sec. II, Tome 2:524-28.
1937
Erosional history of the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming.
Am., 48:813-94.
With E. B. Bailey. Recumbent folding in the Pennsylvania Pied-
mont: preliminary statement. Am. T. Sci., 5th ser., 33:187-90.
Bull. Geol. Soc.
1938
The origin of Appalachian drainage: a reply. Am. J. Sci., 5th ser.,
36:27-53.
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JOSEPH HOOVER MACKIN
259
1940
With H. P. Hansen. A further study of interglacial peat from
Washington. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 67: 131-42.
1941
A geologic interpretation of the failure of the Cedar Reservoir,
Washington. Bulletin of the University of Washington Engi-
neering Experiment Station, 107, 30 pp.
Drainage changes near Wind Gap, Pennsylvania. A study in map
interpretation. journal of Geomorphology, 4:24-53.
Glacial geology of the Snoqualmie-Cedar area, Washington. I.
Geol., 49:449-81.
lg44
Relation of geology to mineralization in the Morton cinnabar dis-
trict, Lewis County, Washington. Wash. Dept. Conserv. Div.
Mines Geol. Rept. Invest., Vol. 6, 47 pp.
1945
With H. A. Coombs. An occurrence of "cave pearls" in a mine in
Idaho. I. Geol., 53: 58-65.
1947
Altitude and relief of the Big Horn area during the Cenozoic. In:
Guidebook for Field Conference in the Big Horn Basin, pp.
103-20. Wyoming Geological Association.
Some Structural Features of the Intrusions in the Iron Springs
District. Guidebook to the Geology of Utah No. 2. Utah Geo-
logical Society. 62 pp.
1948
Concept of the graded river.
Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., 59:463-512.
1949
With H. P. Hansen. A pre-Wisconsin forest succession in the Puget
Lowland, Washington. Am. I. Sci., 5th ser., 47:833-55.
1950
The down-structure method of viewing geologic maps. J. Geol.,
58:55-72.
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260
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
1952
Reconnaissance geology of the monazite placers of the Long Valley
district, Idaho. U.S. Geol. Surv. Trace Elem. Memo. Rept.
473, 22 pp.
1953
Iron ore deposits of the Iron Mountain district, Washington County,
Idaho. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 982-E:121-51.
Reconnaissance geology of placer deposits containing radioactive
minerals in the Bear Valley district, Valley County, Idaho.
U.S. Geol. Surv. Trace Elem. Memo. Rept. 602, 35 pp.
Stream planation near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bull. Geol.
Soc. Am., 64:705-10.
1954
Geology and iron ore deposits of the Granite Mountain area, Iron
County, Utah. U.S. Geol. Survey Mineral Investigations Field
Studies Map, ME 14.
1956
With D. L. Schmidt. Uranium- and thorium-bearing minerals in
placer deposits in Idaho. U.S. Geol. Surv. Profess. Paper 300:
375-80.
1960
With Earl Ingerson. An hypothesis for the origin of ore-forming
fluid. U.S. Geol. Surv. Profess. Paper 400:B1-B2.
Structural significance of Tertiary volcanic rocks in southwestern
Utah. Am. I. Sci., 5th ser., 58:81-131.
Geomorphology. In: McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and
Technology, pp. 172-73. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.
1962
A strat~graphic section in the Yakima Basalt and Ellensburg For-
mation in south-central Washington. Wash. Dept. Conserv.
Div. Mines Geol. Rept. Invest., No. 19, 45 pp.
Structure of the Glenarm Series in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., 73:403-09.
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J OSEP H H O O VER M A CKIN
1963
261
Rational and empirical-methods of investigation in geology. In:
The Fabric of Geology, ed. by C. C. Albritten, Jr., pp. 135-63.
Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley.
Reconnaissance stratigraphy of the Needles Range Formation in
southwestern Utah. In: Guidebook to the Geology of South-
western Utah, ed. by E. B. Heylmun, pp. 71-78. Salt Lake City,
Intermountain Association of Petroleum Geologists.
1964
The development of geomorphology.
1965
Science, 146:1665-66.
With E. M. Shoemaker, E. N. Goddard, H. H. Schmitt, fir., and A. C.
Waters. Geological field investigation in early Apollo manned
lunar landing missions. United States Geological Survey, Re-
port to NASA. 92 pp.
With A. S. Cary. Origin of Cascade landscape.
Washington Di-
vision of Mines and Geology, Information Circular 41, 35 pp.
1966
With P. L. Williams. Guidebook to stratigraphy of Tertiary vol-
canic rocks, Cedar City, Utah to Las Vegas, Nevada. Geological
Society of America Field Trip No. 8, Las Vegas meeting, 1966.
1967
Citation presentation of Penrose Medal to Philip B. King. Pro-
ceedings for 1967, Geological Society of America, pp. 75-77.
With H. R. Blank, in Geologic interpretation of an aeromagnetic
survey of the Iron Springs district, Utah. U.S. Geol. Surv.
Profess. Paper 516-B, 14 pp.
1968
Iron ore deposits of the Iron Springs district, southwestern Utah.
In: Ore Deposits of the United States, 1933-1967, ed. by J. D.
Ridge, pp. 992-1019. New York, American Institute of Mining
and Metallurgical Engineers.
OCR for page 276
262
Origin of lunar maria.
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
1969
Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., 80:735~7.
1970
Origin of pediments in the western United States. In: Problems of
Relief Planation, ed. by M. Pesci, pp. 107-11. Budapest, Akad.
Kiad6.
With D. L. Schmidt. Quaternary geology of Long and Bear valleys,
west-central Idaho. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull. 1311-A, 22 pp.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
biographical memoirs
