[Aqualist] Paul S. Martin, 1928-2010

[Barrows, Timothy]

From: Gifford H. Miller [gmiller at colorado.edu]

PAUL S. MARTIN, 1928-2010, A LIFE IN SCIENCE
     Paul S. Martin passed away on September 13, 2010 at his home in Tucson.  Paul Martin led an extraordinary life.  Broad interests and limitless curiosity took him down intellectual and geographical paths reserved only for the bravest souls.  Paul's creativity and keen power of observation fueled a scientific career that flourished for six decades.  In the 1950s, investigating how North American plant communities had changed over the past 40 to 50 thousand years, Paul noticed that the plantlife had experienced no extinction during this time period whereas most of North America's large mammals had died out when the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago.  Paul Martin set about to solve this mystery of why such spectacular beasts as ground sloths, giant armadillos, mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, sabertooths, lions, and giant bears no longer existed here.
     Paul believed that one thing distinguished this massive extinction event from all others in the fossil record --- it coincided with the first arrival of humans in the Americas.  Working closely with a long list of geologists, paleontologists, botanists, zoologists, and mathematicians through the decades, Paul accumulated abundant evidence that supported his theory that most species of large mammals, not just in North America, but in Central and South America as well, were hunted to extinction by early Americans.  This theory became known as Pleistocene Overkill.  It was his leadership role in the debates about the cause(s) of these extinctions for which Paul was renowned and respected worldwide.  Aside from numerous articles in journals and chapters in books, Paul wrote or edited major books on the topic of late Quaternary extinctions.  In 2005, a full 16 years after his retirement from the University of Arizona, Paul summarized his thoughts on Pleistocene extinctions in the book Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America.
     Paul Schultz Martin was born in Allentown, PA on August 22, 1928 to Daisy S. Schultz and Francis Earl Martin.  The only child of farm-raised parents, he had abundant opportunities to explore rural Pennsylvania during and just after the Great Depression.  As a boy, Paul also worked alongside his father (a veterinarian) and his uncles (dairy farmers).  Paul's childhood interests were just as broad as those he honed as an adult; he was fascinated by climate, weather, geology, plants, and animals of all sorts.
     Paul enrolled at Cornell University in 1945, and immediately he began to interact with an active, highly dedicated group of biologists.  In January 1948, Paul took part in an expedition to Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico.  Paul was fascinated by the lifestyle of rural Mexicans, and by the wondrous flora and fauna of the Mexican countryside.  Paul's love of Mexico never died.  For example, he spearheaded a major project on the plantlife of southern Sonora and adjacent Chihuahua even after he retired from the University of Arizona in 1989.
     Paul Martin obtained a B.A. in Zoology from Cornell in 1951.  He was married now to another Cornell zoology student, Marian Wallach.  They moved to the University of Michigan where Paul earned an M.S. (1953) and Ph.D. (1956) in zoology by studying the biogeography of amphibians and reptiles in the world's northernmost tropical cloud forest in Tamaulipas.  The monograph that Paul published from his dissertation research was ground-breaking in that he considered how the ice ages might have affected the past and present distribution of amphibians, reptiles, and their habitats.
     During postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and the University of Montreal in 1956 and 1957, Paul Martin's interest in understanding the plants and animals of the ice age really blossomed.  Paul moved to Tucson in 1957 with Marian and their three young sons (Andy, Neil, and Tom) to start a new job at the up and coming University of Arizona. He took an office in the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, overlooking Tucson on its western edge.  The Desert Lab was administered through most of Paul's career by the Department of Geosciences.  Through his leadership, the Desert Lab became a bastion of academic freedom, interdisciplinary cooperation, and prolific scientific research.  In this natural setting, surrounded by the native plants and animals of the Sonoran desert he loved, not to mention stimulating colleagues with wide-ranging interests, Paul Martin thrived for over 50 years.  He guided many students at the University of Arizona, whose own careers have gone in every possible disciplinary direction.
     Paul Martin's infatuation with the mystery of Pleistocene extinctions never waned, but only grew through time.  He took an idea that started in North America and expanded its concepts to a global scale, finding a clear relationship between the first arrival of humans and extinction of animals in places as far from his home base as Australia and the Pacific islands.  Paul's interest in extinctions worldwide helped to quench his thirst for adventure, including such daring escapades as flying north-south through all of South America, and the same in African and Madagascar, with the renowned bush pilot Ike Russell.
     In 1978, Paul married Mary Kay O'Rourke, and they lived together until his death in the Historic District of Tucson.  Among their many notable adventures together were numerous camping trips to northern Mexico (especially Sonora), a visit to the Galápagos Islands in 1980, and to Australia in 1988.  Mary Kay now is a Professor in the University of Arizona's School of Public Health, being a specialist in airborne pathogens and toxins.  As Paul's health declined in recent years, Mary Kay stood steadfastly and unselfishly at his side.  Aside from his dear wife Mary Kay O'Rourke, Paul Martin is survived by his sons Andy Martin (with wife Sarah and daughters Molly and Jane), Neil Martin, and Tom Martin (with wife Hazel).
     AMQUA awarded Paul its Distinguished Career Award in 1999.  Paul Martin will be deeply missed by all who worked with him and by those who share his love of the Quaternary.

David W. Steadman
James E. King

Obituary on the University of Arizona News:  http://www.uanews.org/node/34237