Bailey Edward Battesby

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Bailey Edward Battesby

(b. Marden, England, 1 July 1881; d. London, England, 19 March 1965)

geology.

Bailey was a son of John Batters By Bailey, medical practitioner, and Louise Florence Carr daughter of a farmer. He was educated at Kendal Grammar School and at Clare College, Cambridge where he graduated with First-class Honors in geology and physics in 1902. In 1914 Bailey married Alice Meason by whom he had a son and a daughter. Alice Meason died in 1956, and six years later he married Mary Young.

While at Cambridge, the reading of translation of Succes’s great synthesis, Das Antlitz der Erde, inspired Bailey with a passionate enthusiasm for geological research—an enthusiasm favored by robust health, remarkable physique, and unusually fertile mind Temperamentally gay, exuberant, and self-confident, he wrote in a clear distinctive style characterized by picturesque phrases. In religious matters he was an atheist.

Upon graduation from Cambridge, Bailey became geologist, and later district geologist, with Geological survey of Great Britain (in Scotland). He held the latter post until 1929. He then became professor of geology at Glasgow University, and in 1937 returned to government service as director of the Geological Survey and Museum. He retired in 1945. Bailey’s many honors included fellowship of the Royal society, six honorary doctorates, and seven scientific medals. He was knighted in 1945.

His work on the Geological Survey was interrupted from 1915 to 1919, when he served as an artillery subaltern on the Western Front and was twice wounded, losing an eye. By his gallantry he gained the Military cross, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion of Honor.

Bailey made notable contributions to tectonics and metamorphism, to igneous and general geology and to the history of the development of geological ideas. His revolutionary tectonic reinterpretation of Dalradian schists in the Scottish Highlands was inspired by the work of his colleagues C.T. Clough and H.B. Maufe, and by excursions in Switzerland and Scandinavia. In Scotland from 1910 onward he introduced new or modified stratigraphical groupings and reinterpreted structure in terms of great recumbent folds and contemporaneous slides (fold faults) that had locally cut out parts of the succession and had then been refolded (1916, 1922, 1925, 1937). Bailey’s syntheses met with criticism, details of which may be found in “Discussions” following his Quarterly Journal papers and in Read and MacGregor (1948). From time to time he modified his ideas(1930, 1934,1938), notably because of evidence provided by the current-bedding criterion for stratigraphical order introduced to Scotland in 1930 by T. Vogt and T.L. Tanton. Bailey’s mature views (e.g. 1916, revision of 1960) are, in the main, now accepted.

In northern Scotland, Bailey dealt with tectonics and metamorphism in the Moine Thrust areas of Skye and the northwest mainland (1951,1955). He supported the correlation of Moinian and Torridonian, and the Caledonian age of Moinian and Dalradian metamorphism(1955).

In 1929 Bailey published an account of the Paleozoic mountain systems of Europe and North America, in which he suggested that the crossing of Caledonian and Hercynian chains, begun in southern Wales and Ireland and completed in New England, may be evidence of continental drift. his Tectonic Essays (1935) explain Alpine terminology and structure. In later years he produced tectonic reassessments of parts of Iran, Turkey(1953), Provence, Gibraltar, and Liguria(1963).

Bailey’s main contributions to Scottish igneous geology stemmed from work with C.T. Clough and H.B. Maufe, In the Glen Coe area they demonstrated a Devonian ring fracture accompanied by a ring intrusion and a central 1,000-foot caldron subsidence of an oval block of schists and Devonian lavas several miles in diameter. A northeasterly dyke swarm was also mapped. These remarkable discoveries were described by Bailey (1909,1916). Both editions of The Geology of Ben Nevis (1916, 1960) include detailed petrographic accounts of Devonian lavas, dykes, and granitic plutons. In a wider study, Bailey inferred that the hornblendic parental Devonian magma was relatively richer in water than the pyroxenic parental British Tertiary magma(1958).

Bailey’s compilation of the memoir on the Tertiary volcanic complex of Mull (1924), and its accompanying intricate map, was recognized as a major scientific achievement. He and his colleagues found evidence of a caldera with pillow lavas, innumerable cone sheets, a northwesterly dyke swarm, and massivering dykes locally modified by gravitative differentiation. Bailey and H.H. Thomas studied the petrology of the complex and introduced the concept of “magma type.” There has been controversy over the ring-dyke differentiation, involving Holmes(1936) and Koomans and Kuenen(1938), as well as over the parental magma, the magma-type concept, and the use of terms “tholeiite” and “tholeiitic,” in which Kennedy (1933), Wells and Wells (1948), Holmes (1949), Tomkeieff(1949). Tilley(1950), Chayes(1966), Dunham(1966), and Tilley and Muir (1967) participated.

Bailey also reassessed the intrusion tectonics of the Arran granite (1926) and of the volcanic complex of Rhum (1945), both of the Tertiary period. With W.J. McCallien, he later studied pillow lavas and serpentines associated with radiolarian cherts in Scotland, Turkey, and the Apennines, and advocated their submarine origin (1953,1957,1960,1963). In Ireland he and McCallien inferred that dolerite can crack before its crystallization has gone very far and can then be locally chilled by contact with invading colder acid magma (1956); such ideas, originally developed with L. R. Wager (1953), have been criticized by Reynolds(1953) and supported by Skelhorn and Elwell (1966). Bailey’s general Scottish work included glaciation studies(1908, 1916, 1924) and an inference that Chalk seas had desert shores(1924).

With L.W. Collet and R.M. Field, Bailey published a reinterpretation of the Quebec and Lèvis conglomerates; these were regarded as the products of submarine landslips, detached during successive subsidences along the hinge of the Logan Slope (1928). He was thus led to infer that Kimmeridgian boulder beds in Sutherland originated from movements along a submarine fault scarp(1932). He later suggested that submarine landslips produce graded bedding and may locally merge into submarine mud rivers(1930,1936,1940). Kuenen and Migliorini (1950) were led thereby to develop the idea of submarine turbidity currents of high density.

Bailey’s historical writings include an invaluable chronological summary of the development of world tectonic research(1935); a history of the Geological Survey(1952); a biography of Sir Charles Lyell (1962); and an account of James Hutton’s life and work which includes a commentary on each chapter of Hutton’s Theory of the Earth(1967).

Obituary notices of Bailey have been written by Stubblefield(1965) and by MacGragor (1966); they contain bibliographies much more comprehensive than that given below.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.Original Works. Bailey’s writings include “The Glaciation of East Lothian South of the Garleton Hills,” in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 46 (1908), 1-31, written with P.F. Kendall’ “The Cauldron-subsidence of Glen coe and the Associated Igneous Phenomena,” in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 65 (1909), 611-678, written with C.T. Clough and H.B. Maufe; The Geology of Ben Nevis and Glen Coe and the Surrounding Country, a memoir of the Geological Survey (Edinburgh, 1916,1960), written with H.B. Maufe et al.; “The Structure of the South-west Highlands of Scotland,” in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 78 (1922), 82-131; “The Desert Shores of the Chalk Seas,” in Geological Magazine, 61 (1924), 102-116; The Tertiary and Post-Tertiary Geology of Mull, Loch Aline and Oban, a memoir of the Geological Survey (Edinburgh, 1924), written with C.T. Clough et al., “Perthshire tectonics; Loch tummel, Blair Atholl and Glen shee,” in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 53 (1925), 671-198; “Domes in Scotland and South Africa: Arran and Vredefort,” in Geological Magazine, 63 (1926), 481-495; “Palaeozoic Submarine Landslips Near Quebec City,” in Journal of Geology, 36 (1928), 577-614, written with L.W. Collet and R.M. Field; “The Palaezoic Mountain of Europe and America,” in Report of the British Association for 1928 (London, 1929), pp.57-76; “New Light on Sedimentation and Tectonics,” in Geological Magazine, 78 (1930), 77-92; “Submarine Faulting in Kimmeridgian Times: East Sutherland”, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 57 (1932), 429-467, written with J. Weir; “West Highland Tectonics: Loch Leven to Gleln Roy,” in Quarterly Journal of te Geological Society of London, 90 (1934), 462-525; Tectonic Essays, Mainly Alpine(Oxford, 1935); “Sedimentation in Relation to Tectonics,” in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 47 (1936), 1713-1726; “Perthshire Tectonics: Schichallion to Glen Lyon,” in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 59 (1937), 79-117, written with W.J. McCallien; “Northwestern Europe: Caledonides,” in Regionale Geologie der Erde, 11, pt. 2 (Leipzig, 1938), 1-76, writtenwith O. Holtedahl; “American Gleanings: 1936,” in Transaction of the Geological Society of Glasgow, 20 (1940), 1-16, issued as an offprint in 1938; “Tertiary Igneous Tectonics of Rhum (Inner Hebrides),” in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 100 (1945), 165-191; “Scourie Dykes and Laxfordian Metamorphism,” in Geological Magazine, 88 (1951), 153-165; Geological Survey of great Britain (London, 1952); “Basic Magma Chilled Against Acid magma,” in Nature,172(1953), 68-69, written with R.L. Wager; “Serpentine Lavas, the Ankara Mèlange and the Anatolian Thrust,” in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 62(1953), 403-442, written with W.J. McCallien; “Moine Tectonics and Metamorphism in Skye,” in Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, 16 (1955), 93-166; “Composite Minor Intrusions and the Slieve Gullion Complex, Ireland,” in Liverpool and Manchester Geological Journal, 1 (1956), 466-501, written with W.J. McCallien; “The Ballantrae Serpentine,” in Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, 17 (1957), 33-53, written with W.J. McCallien; “Some Chemical Aspects of Southwest Highland Devonian Igneous Rocks,” in Bulletin of the Geological Survey, 15 (London, 1958), 1-20; “Some Aspects of the Steinmann Trinity, Mainly Chemical,” in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of a London,116 (1960), 365-395, written with W.J. McCallinen; Charles Lyell (London, 1962); “Leguria Nappe: Northern Apennines,” in Transactions of the royal Society of Edinburgh, 65 (1963), 315-33, written with W.J. McCallien; and James Hutton— The Founder of Modern Geology (Amsterdam-LondonNew York, 1967).

II.Secondary Literature. Writings dealing with Bailey or his work are F. Chayes, in American Journal of Science, 264 (1966), 128-145; K.C. Dunham, in The Geology of Norhtern Skye, a memoir of the geological Survey (Edinburgh, 1966), p.157’ A. Holmes, in Geological Magazine, 73 (1936), 228-238, and ibid., 86 (1949), 71-72 W.Q. Kennedy, in American Journal of Science, 25 (1933), 239-256; C. Koomans and P.H. Kuenen, in Geological Magazine, 75(1938), 145-160; P.H. Kuenen and C.I. Migliorini, in Journal of geology, 58 (1950), 91-127; a.G. MacGregor, in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 77 (1966),“Proceedings,” 31-39; H.H. Read and A.G. MacGregor, British Regional Geoglogy: The Grampian Highlands, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1948), pp. 16-38; D.L. Reynolds, in Nature, 172 (1953), 69; R.R. Skelhorn and R.W. De Elwell, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 66 (1966), 294;. J. stubblefield, in Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society of London, 11 (1965), 1-21; T.L. Tanton, in Geological Magazine, 67 (1930), 73-76; C.E. Tilley, in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 106 (1950), 37-61; C.E. Tilley and I.D. Muir, in Geological Magazine, 104 (1967), 337-343; S.I. Tomkeieff, ibid., 86 (1949), 130; T. Vogt, ibid., 67 (1930), 68-73; and M.K. Wells and A.K. Wells, ibid., 85 (1948), 349-357.

A. G. MacGregor