J. Michael Queen (1948 – 2019): A Memorial

Abstract

The author’s rights are protected under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Dr. James Michael Queen of Carlsbad, New Mexico, passed away on August 20, 2019, from pancreatic cancer, at his family’s home in Oak Hill, New York. He devoted most of his life to the innermost processes of speleogenesis. His other interests ranged widely, starting from a foundation in geology and paleontology and branching in many directions through the fine arts and humanities. On the day of his death, he dictated these last few words to his family: Dear Friends, if you are reading this it means that the time on my ticket has expired and I have shuffled on. I don’t know about the when or how of the return trip. As a bat perhaps, or a cephalopod? Or a new biothem [a speleothem built around organic filaments]? Watch for me soon! A close friend, Ron Kerbo (retired Cave Specialist at Carlsbad Caverns National Park), wrote a eulogy that concluded with: He showed us that to be rich is to never stop wondering.... Ron and I collaborated on a remembrance of Michael for the November 2019 NSS News (National Speleological Society, USA). Here I focus on some of his more important work in the field. Born in California in 1948, Michael grew up in New York State and obtained B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, with concentrations in biology and geology. Employment never ranked high among his priorities. He held many part-time jobs throughout the USA, mainly in college teaching and petroleum geology, which gave him the flexibility to pursue geology at his own pace. In 1971 he interrupted his university studies to work for Shell Oil Company, near the cavernous Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico. On his first caving trips there, he noticed that much of the limestone in the cave walls had been replaced by gypsum, which preserved the textures of the original limestone. This idea launched him on a 40-year study of Guadalupe caves, particularly Carlsbad Cavern. His first interpretation of the interaction between limestone and gypsum was presented at the 1973 NSS Convention and won an award for best scientific paper by a young student. At roughly the same time, the concept of speleogenesis by sulfuric acid was proposed by Stephen Egemeier, also a graduate of State University of New York (New Paltz), from observations in the still-active Kane Caves of Wyoming for his PhD studies at Stanford University. His work was published in 1981 and helped to steer Guadalupe researchers in the same direction. Michael and one or two fellow researchers (e.g., Donald Davis of Colorado) also considered sulfuric acid to be a factor in late-stage modification of the Guadalupe caves; but further observations convinced him that, in fact, most of the cave enlargement was the work of sulfuric acid. Michael wrote few technical papers, but they described speleogenetic processes with unusual clarity. His interpretations tend to follow paths independent from other researchers. For example, he stressed the importance of cave enlargement by sulfuric acid above the water table long before the concept became well accepted. He was not the first to conceive of some of these concepts, but he expanded on them independently and helped to explain them to others. A prominent feature in Carlsbad Cavern is a spongelike zone of bedrock called the Boneyard, which was long considered an iconic example of phreatic dissolution. On the basis of morphology, air patterns,