Nicholas Shackleton

Professor Sir Nicholas Shackleton
Born	23 June 1937
Died	24 January 2006
Nationality	British
Fields	geology
Known for	Quaternary Period
Influences	Harry Godwin[1]
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society[2] Wollaston Medal

Sir Nicholas John Shackleton FRS^[2] (23 June 1937—24 January 2006) was a British geologist and climatologist who specialised in the Quaternary Period.^[3] He was the son of the distinguished field geologist Robert Millner Shackleton and great-nephew of the explorer Ernest Shackleton.^[4]

Educated at Cranbrook School, Kent (thanks to the generosity of a person he called his 'fairy godmother' as she paid his school fees) Shackleton went on to read natural sciences at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating with the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961, and in 1964 a Master of Arts degree. In 1967 Cambridge awarded him a PhD degree, for his thesis entitled 'The Measurement of Paleotemperatures in the Quaternary Era'.

Apart from periods abroad as Visiting Professor or Research Associate, Shackleton's entire scientific career was spent at Cambridge. He became Ad hominem Professor in 1991, in the Department of Earth Sciences, working in the Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research.

The Glacial effect describes the change of the oxygen isotope composition of sea water, due to growing ice sheets in high latitudes during glacials.

Shackleton was a key figure in the field of palaeoceanography, publishing over two hundred scientific papers. He was a pioneer in the use of mass spectrometry to determine changes in climate as recorded in the oxygen isotope composition of calcareous microfossils.^[5] He also found evidence that the Earth's last magnetic field reversal was 780,000 years ago. Shackleton became known, in 1976, with the publication of his paper, with James Hays and John Imbrie, in Science entitled 'Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages'.^[6] Using ocean sediment cores, the researchers demonstrated that oscillations in climate over the past few million years could be correlated with variations in the orbital and positional relationship between the Earth and the Sun (see Milankovitch cycles).

Much of Shackleton's later work focused on constructing precise timescales based on matching the periodic cycles in deep-sea sediment cores to calculations of incoming sunlight at particular latitudes over geological time, a method which allows a far greater level of stratigraphic precision than other dating methods, and also helped to clarify the rates and mechanisms of aspects of climate change.

In September 2000 he published an innovative study of the relationship between the oxygen isotope record of the oceans and isotope records obtained from the ice in Antarctica (glacial effect). This helped to pin down the relative contribution of deep water temperature changes and ice volume changes to the marine isotopic record, and also highlighted the close interdependency between carbon dioxide levels and temperature change over the last 400,000 years.

In 1995 Shackleton became Director of the Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research. In 1998, he was knighted for his services to earth sciences. From 1999 to 2003 he was president of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA). In 2010 Nick Shackleton was one of ten scientists depicted on a set of postage stamps commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. Shackleton was chosen to represent Earth Science.

Shackleton was also a skilled amateur clarinet player, and collector of woodwind instruments. During his lifetime he amassed the world's largest collection of clarinets, and his Cambridge home became a place of pilgrimage for many players and scholars. He was internationally known as an organologist, reflected in his many journal articles, as well as his contributions to the 1980 and 2001 editions of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, as well as the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Most of Shackleton's substantial instrument collection, numbering over 700 instruments, was bequeathed to the University of Edinburgh together with an endowment. Part of the collection is now exhibited at the Reid Concert Hall, as part of Edinburgh University's Collection of Historic Musical Instruments. The collection has been described in a published catalogue [1].

In addition to his reputation in the scientific world, Shackleton was highly respected by many musicians, and a friend to many who studied at Cambridge, including Christopher Hogwood. The fine copies, by Cambridge maker Daniel Bangham, of many clarinets in Shackleton's collection, had a significant impact on historical performance from the 1980s, and continue to be used by leading performers today.

Awards

• Doctor of Science (ScD), University of Cambridge, 1984
• Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), 1985^[2]
• Shepard Medal (SEPM) for excellence in marine geology 1985
• Carus Medal, Deutsche Akademie für Naturforscher 'Leopoldina' 1985
• Lyell Medal, Geological Society of London 1987
• Founding member, Academia Europaea 1988
• Fellow, American Geophysical Union 1990
• Huntsman Medal for excellence in the marine sciences (Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada) 1990
• Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1995
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Dalhousie University Canada 1996
• Wollaston Medal, Geological Society of London 1996^[7]
• Honorary Doctor of Philosophy, Stockholm University 1997
• Knighthood for services to the earth sciences in 1998
• Milankovitch Medal, European Geophysical Society 1999
• Foreign Associate, US National Academy of Sciences, 2000
• Foreign Member, Royal Netherlands Society of Arts and Sciences, 2001
• Honorary Doctorate, Geology, University of Padova, Italy, 2002
• Maurice Ewing Medal, American Geophysical Union, 2002
• Honorary member, EUG, 2003
• Urey Medal, European Association of Geochemistry, 2003
• Royal Medal, Royal Society of London, 2003
• Vetlesen Prize, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, 2004
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004
• Founder's Medal, Royal Geographical Society, 2005
• Blue Planet Prize, Asahi Glass Foundation, Japan, 2005

References

1. ^ http://www.quaternary.group.cam.ac.uk/history/directors/shackleton.html Professor Sir Nicholas Shackleton FRS
2. ^ ^{a b c} McCave, I. N.; Elderfield, H. (2011). "Sir Nicholas John Shackleton. 23 June 1937 -- 24 January 2006". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2011.0005.  edit
3. ^ Tzedakis, C. (2006). "Professor Sir Nicholas J. Shackleton, FRS (1937–2006)". Quaternary Science Reviews 25 (5–6): 403–416. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.02.008.  edit
4. ^ Brozan, Nadine (February 12, 2006). Sir Nicholas Shackleton, Geologist, Is Dead at 68. New York Times
5. ^ Shackleton, N. (1973). "Oxygen isotope and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy of Equatorial Pacific core V28-238: Oxygen isotope temperatures and ice volumes on a 105 year and 106 year scale*1". Quaternary Research 3: 39–00. doi:10.1016/0033-5894(73)90052-5.  edit
6. ^ Hays, J. D.; Imbrie, J.; Shackleton, N. J. (1976). "Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages". Science 194 (4270): 1121–1132. doi:10.1126/science.194.4270.1121. PMID 17790893.  edit
7. ^ "Wollaston Medal". Award Winners since 1831. Geological Society of London. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/null/lang/en/page750.html. Retrieved 2009-02-25. 

External links

• A special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews dedicated to Nick Shackleton; includes several articles by and about him, as well as a complete list of his publications.
• Tributes to Nicholas Shackleton

Persondata
Name	Shackleton, Nicholas
Alternative names
Short description	Geologist
Date of birth	23 June 1937
Place of birth
Date of death	24 January 2006
Place of death