Memorial to Thomas Gibson Payne1915-1986

JAMES E. LACEY Texaco, Inc., 3901 Briarpark, Houston, Texas 77042

Thomas Gibson Payne died on September 27, 1986, of respiratory complications brought on by open-heart surgery several years earlier.

Tom was born in Rochester, New York, on June 30,1915. He graduated with distinction from the University of Rochester in 1937 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. From1936 to 1939 he worked as curator at the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences, maintaining a saltwater aquarium and helping design dioramas of Paleozoic sea life.In 1939 he was awarded an M.S. degree from the University of Rochester.

He received a fellowship to the University of Chicago and was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1942. His dissertation research, directed by both Carey Croneis and Francis J.Pettijohn, utilized sedimentary petrography and paleontology to develop a systematic, integrated approach to environmental reconstruction. Tom’s paper describing his work in this area is a classic and is included in the AAPG Reprint Series volume Facies and the Reconstruction o f Environments.

After one year as an instructor at the University of Kansas, Tom joined the Alaska Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1942. Thus began his association with Alaska, which was to have a major impact on his career. Assigned to the war minerals program, Tom spent his first field season prospecting for tin placer deposits in the central Yukon River area.

The other momentous event of 1942 was Tom’s marriage to Pauline Miller of Mildred, Kansas. Tom and Polly were perfectly suited to one another and were to bring each other many years of happiness. Their marriage produced three children: Lawrence, Gregory, and Sally.

The field seasons of 1943 and 1944 were spent defining the stratigraphy and structure of the Matanuska coal fields. The work resulted in the discovery of significant new reserves.

In 1945, Tom joined the group assisting the U.S. Navy in evaluating Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4, in northern Alaska. Tom, working with George Gryc and others, made outstanding contributions to defining the facies relations and tectonics of the North Slope. He was the first to identify and name its major tectonic elements. His framework geology is still valid today. He differentiated the northern source for the Ellesmerian sequence from the southern source for the Brookian sequence, a critical point in understanding North Slope geology.

Tom also identified the major tectonic elements of the entire state of Alaska. The basin framework developed by him, Don Miller, and George Gryc was published in their analysis of the future petroleum provinces of Alaska in USGS Bulletin 1094. The structural and sedimentary history presented in this volume undoubtedly played an important part in the exploration of the North Slope and subsequent discovery of the Prudhoe Bay field.

In Tom’s early years with the Survey, he spent only the field seasons in Alaska. In 1945, he and Polly moved to Fairbanks where their first child was born on a bitterly cold winter day. In1946 the Payne family moved from Fairbanks to Washington, D.C. For the next several years he

37

38 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

continued to work on various aspects of Alaskan geology. His most outstanding contribution during this period was his compilation of a geologic map of Alaska. The map, published in 1957, was the first statewide geologic map produced since an incomplete version published in 1939.

Tom left the Survey in 1953 for employment with the Texas Company (now Texaco, Inc.) in Houston, Texas. After a few years solving various aspects of Gulf Coast regional geology, Tom was transferred to Texaco’s research laboratory. His broad background and extremely inventive mind allowed him to make many major contributions in vastly different subject areas during his years at the laboratory.

It was during this period that I came to know Tom. He was the best researcher I have ever encountered. I was astonished at how he could break through old ways of looking at problems and develop innovative approaches. Numerous times I saw him presented with difficult problems in subjects far removed from his past experience. He would totally immerse himself in the new subject area, see the forest where others saw only trees, and solve seemingly insoluble problems.

When I first met him, Tom was concluding a massive study on the relation between stratigraphy and the occurrence of oil and gas. He developed data files of stratigraphic descriptors that allowed him to create maps of the probability of hydrocarbon occurrence. He discovered that computer mapping algorithms of the day were inadequate, so he developed his own mapping software that was far superior to the commercial products.

Tom was next assigned to develop a strategy for evaluating Gulf Coast salt domes. He devised a procedure that mirrored the techniques used by a veteran Texaco geologist who had been highly successful in salt dome development. Although the term “expert system” had not yet been coined, Tom’s approach exactly paralleled the expert systems that are such an important aspect of artificial intelligence work today.

Tom’s reputation as a “problem solver” led to his next assignment: developing a bidding strategy for the sealed-bid lease sales held by the Federal Government for offshore tracts. Texaco was frequently being outbid for desirable tracts, and its successful bids were commonly much higher than necessary. Tom immersed himself in the topic and began to see lease sales as a fascinating game, played for high stakes and with rules for successful strategies only vaguely understood by the players. He developed a novel strategy that allowed the company to estimate the probability of success of a given bid and to predict the economic consequences of successful bids. His approach included a computer program that allowed evaluation of various bidding strategies and a technique to devise an optimal bidding strategy.

In Tom’s last years with Texaco, he worked on the problem of estimating petroleum potential from regional stratigraphy, geochemistry, and structure. Typically, the approach he developed was far ahead of its time. It utilized reaction-rate kinetics to describe hydrocarbon generation and many other chemical and physical principles to estimate fluid movement and composition. Tom did this work in the early 1970s, long before comparable computer programs began to appear.

Tom took early retirement from Texaco in December 1975. He and Polly moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, for what he expected to be a quiet retirement. It was not to be. The U.S. Geological Survey was evaluating the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, and George Gryc was quick to offer Tom a role as a consultant. Tom was extremely pleased to work once again on what had always been his overriding scientific interest—the geology of Alaska. As usual, he became totally immersed in the work. He bought a home computer, digitized seismic lines on his own digitizer, and used the computer to produce his own maps. He taught himself what he needed to know about geophysics and quickly devised an ingenious technique to correct for mis-ties between lines. His work was quite valuable to the Survey in relating seismic data to stratigraphy.

It was during this period that Tom underwent open-heart surgery. The respiratory problems brought on by the post-operative treatment eventually forced him and Polly to move to near sea level in Eugene, Oregon.

MEMORIAL TO THOMAS GIBSON PAYNE 39

Even during this period of declining health, Toni’s mind remained as active as ever. He finished his contributions to the Survey as a consultant on the Petroleum Reserve. He also became increasingly interested in music, which had been an important secondary interest throughout his life. For several years in his youth, he had held a scholarship in piano to the Junior Eastman School of Music. Eventually, his scientific interests overtook his musical ones, and he decided to pursue a career in science. In the last year of his life, despite extremely poor health, he began composing an anthem. He completed the work and lived to hear it performed by his church choir. It was recorded by a chamber singing group three days after his death.

Tom was certainly the most remarkable individual I have ever met. He was extremely talented in many fields—music, mathematics, physics, computers, and, of course, many disciplines in geology. I was continually amazed at how he was totally consumed by projects he was working on. When he was in the midst of a project, those of us who worked near his office at Texaco would routinely have to remind him to break for lunch. Conversations with Tom during these periods were an experience. Ideas would flow from him at a rate that defied our ability to comprehend them, or even to get them down on paper.

His energy and enthusiasm were never more evident than in his final scientific project—his consulting work for the U.S. Geological Survey on the North Slope. Although he had serious health problems and was at an age when most people are enjoying retirement, he approached the task with extraordinary enthusiam. I’ll always remember a conversation I had with Tom the day before he was scheduled to enter the hospital for open-heart surgery. I had called from Houston to inquire about his health and to do what I could to raise his spirits. I needn’t have worried about his spirits. In the entire 45-minute conversation, he devoted two sentences to his health. The rest of the conversation was vintage Tom Payne: talking as fast as he could, discussing North Slope geology, results of his latest work, and new ideas he intended to try when he got out of the hospital.

Although his talents and accomplishments would certainly have justified a large measure of pride, the only times I remember Tom expresssing much pride were when he was discussing his family. He was devoted to his family and they to him. Tom was quiet and shy and was well liked by all who come into contact with him. He was such a gentle man that his ideas, which frequently ran counter to conventional wisdom, seldom led to conflict with the proponents of that wisdom.

Tom Payne touched many lives during his lifetime. He will be sorely missed by those fortunate enough to have known him.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF T. G. PAYNE1942 Stratigraphical analysis and environmental reconstruction: American Association of

Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 26, p. 1697-1770.1951 (with Gryc, G., and Miller, D. J.) Alaska, in Ball, M. W., Baker, A. A., Cohee, G. V.,

Whitney, P. B., and Ball, D., eds., Possible future petroleum provinces of North America: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 35, p. 151-168.

------ (with Gryc, G., and Patton, W. W.) Present Cretaceous stratigraphie nomenclature ofnorthern Alaska: Washington Academy of Science Journal, v. 41, p. 159-167.

------ (and Dana, S. W., Fischer, W. A., Gryc, G., Lathram, E. H., Morris, R. H., Tappan, H. N.,and Yuster, S. T.) Geology of the Arctic slope of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations Map OM 126.

1954 (with Dutro, J. T.) Geologic map of Alaska: U.S. Geologic Survey, scale 1:2,500,000.1955 Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonic elements of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous

Geologic Investigations Map 1-84.

1956 (with Barnes, F. F.) The Wishbone Hill district, Matanuska coal field, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1016, 88 p.

1959 (with Miller, D. J., and Gryc, G.) Geology of possible petroleum provinces in Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1094, 131 p.

1974 Stratigraphical analysis and environmental reconstruction, in Facies and the reconstruction of environments: Americal Association of Petroleum Geologists Reprint Series, No. 10, p. 4-79.

1981 Possible gas hydrate effect on recovery of oil and gas from reservoirs in East Barrow Field, in Bowsher, A. L., ed., Proceedings of a workshop on clathrates (gas hydrates) in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 81-1298, p. 110-113.

1982 Use of microcomputer in mapping depth of Stratigraphie horizons in National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 82-1054, 42 p.

40 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Printed in U.S.A. 9 /89