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Report on Obituary Notices (Unknown) — December 1992


Obituary Notices

Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1992)
Managing Editor: Lindsay McClelland.

Obituary Notices (Unknown) Deaths of six volcanologists (Zapata, Brown, Cuenca, García, Menyailov, and Trujillo) at Galeras

Please cite this report as:

Global Volcanism Program, 1992. Report on Obituary Notices (Unknown) (McClelland, L., ed.). Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network, 17:12. Smithsonian Institution. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.GVP.BGVN199212-600400



Obituary Notices

Unknown

Lat Unknown, Unknown; summit elev. m

All times are local (unless otherwise noted)


We are saddened to report the deaths of six volcanologists in the 14 January 1993 eruption of Galeras.

José Arlés Zapata (INGEOMINAS, Pasto, Colombia) was a gas geochemist who had helped monitor Ruiz as a student. He was one of the initial employees of the Galeras Observatory at Pasto.

Geoff Brown (Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.) had wide-ranging interests that included petrologic studies, the use of gravity data to monitor subvolcanic magma movements, and the dynamics of hydrothermal systems.

Fernando Cuenca (INGEOMINAS, Bogotá, Colombia) was a geophysicist who had recently conducted a magnetic survey of Galeras.

Néstor García (Universidad Nacional, Manizales, Colombia), an industrial chemist, helped monitor Ruiz before the 1985 tragedy, and had since worked closely with the staff of the Ruiz Observatory.

Igor Menyailov (Institute of Volcanology, Petropavlovsk, Russia) had worked extensively on volcanic gases in Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands, and Nicaragua for a quarter century.

Carlos Trujillo (CESMAG, Pasto, Colombia) had used the volcano and its observatory as a classroom for his community college students, and was an enthusiastic participant in monitoring efforts.

Menyailov, García, and Brown had all given valuable reports to SEAN/GVN in the past, covering activity in Nicaragua, Colombia, and Costa Rica. The loss of four Colombian scientists was a particularly severe blow to the nation's volcanology program, which has developed rapidly since the 1985 Ruiz eruption. All six were strong scientists with much yet to give to volcanology. Our science was strengthened by their contributions and is weakened by their loss.

Geological Summary. Obituary notices for volcanologists are sometimes written when scientists are killed during an eruption or have had a special relationship with the Global Volcanism Program.

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