Robert E. Wallace
1917-Jan. 8, 2007
Reno, Nevada
The public face of Dr. Robert E. Wallace was standing with Dan Rather, on top of a van, in front of the collapsed Cypress Freeway in Oakland, explaining to the world on the CBS Evening News what had happened in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Dr. Wallace, a longtime resident of Portola Valley, earned that place through 50 years with the U.S. Geological Survey, where he pioneered the study of earthquake geology and hazards along the San Andreas Fault and around the world.
"Bob was one of the pioneers of earthquake science," says geophysicist Bill Ellsworth of the Earthquake Hazards Team at the USGS in Menlo Park.
Dr. Wallace died Jan. 8 of kidney failure in Reno, where he and his wife Trudy moved in 1998. He was 90.
Bob Wallace was born in New York City, raised in New Jersey, and received his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University.
He first studied the San Andreas fault for his doctor's thesis at the California Institute of Technology. He mapped the fault near Palmdale, camping out, playing his violin for the coyotes, and eating cold canned beef stew, he reported in an oral history, "Earthquakes, Minerals and Me," published in 1999 and available on the USGS Web site: quake.usgs.gov.
That study showed the fault had slipped 75 miles ? a startling conclusion at the time.
After getting his doctorate, Dr. Wallace joined the USGS, and spent most of World War II in Alaska looking for minerals, including uranium. During this period, he met and married Trudy, his wife, companion, and best friend for 60 years. She died in 2005.
After teaching at Washington College for four years after the war, Dr. Wallace rejoined the USGS in 1951, and moved to its new Menlo Park office in 1956. There he helped create the Office of Earthquake Studies and build it into one of the world's top earthquake centers. He was its first chief scientist.
During more than 40 years with the USGS in Menlo Park, Dr. Wallace studied the geology of earthquakes and their hazards in California and around the world. He discovered a stream descending from the Carrizo Plain in Southern California that moved 30 feet sideways across the fault during a big earthquake in 1857, when the Pacific Plate of the earth's crust jerked northwest 30 feet. It is named Wallace Creek.
As one of the world's leading experts on earthquakes, Dr. Wallace has traveled to Turkey, Japan, the Soviet Union, the Philippines, the Middle East, and China.
"Tracking earthquakes along the Great Wall of China" was the title of a 1985 Almanac article describing how a team of American and Chinese scientists learned about modern earthquakes by studying breaks and landforms caused by ancient earthquakes. "We coined the term paleo-seismology," Dr. Wallace said then. "They are really fossil earthquakes."
Dr. Wallace was one of the geologists living in Portola Valley who became concerned when they realized the middle school sat on the San Andreas fault, and children were at risk in an earthquake.
Dr. Wallace was so concerned ? his son Alan attended Portola Valley School ? he even ran for the school board.
Eventually the school closed, and became Town Center for almost 30 years. Now the buildings are being torn down to make way for a new Town Center ? off the fault.
Thoroughly aware of the hazards the fault posed to their communities, Portola Valley and Woodside established a joint Geologic Hazards Committee in the 1960s. Members included noted geologists Bob Wallace, Ben Page and Earl Pampeyan.
After incorporating in 1964, and spurred by its geologists, Portola Valley became a leader in planning to accommodate building to geologic hazards such as earthquakes and landslides. It prepared geologic maps of the fault and town, and passed regulations controlling building in risky areas.
While Dr. Wallace served on several of these committees, he acted more as a "steady guiding hand," who remained in the background, says George Mader, who has been town planner since incorporation. "He's always been there to answer questions and support actions."
Sheldon Breiner, longtime resident and chairman of the town's geologic safety committee, also saw Dr. Wallace as the go-to man for questions of geology. "He was the Mr. Earthquake anywhere, the final word," he says. "He was the one guy you went to for opinions."
Dr. Wallace was also a Renaissance man. Friends remember him as an avid bird watcher, ham radio operator, and amateur astronomer. His watercolor landscape paintings won numerous awards. "He did his own Christmas cards," recalls fellow geologist Chet Wrucke of Portola Valley.
Over 42 years with the USGS in Menlo Park, Dr. Wallace published over 100 papers and a book. He also garnered numerous awards from major geologic, engineering and seismic organizations. He officially "retired" in 1987, but continued working for USGS for 11 more years before moving to Reno, where son Alan Wallace is a geologist with the USGS.
Dr. Wallace is survived by his sister, Harriet Wallace of Savoy, Illinois, and his son, Alan Wallace of Reno.
As a career tribute, the USGS in 2000 dedicated the Robert E. Wallace Earthquake Center in Building 3A on its Menlo Park campus. At its dedication, Dr. Wallace said this would serve as his memorial, instead of a memorial service after his death.
Tags: teacher/educator
