Fred's interest in paleontology was initiated by reading books on vertebrate paleontology as a child in Norfolk, England. This interest was spurred on by summer holiday searches in local chalk quarries for brachiopods and echinoids, and by parents who gave him a microscope at the age of ten. In this way the "small" became as interesting and intriguing as the "large."

The choice of University College London for Fred's college education was lucky, given its liberal attitudes and the presence of Tom Barnard. Fred had never heard of micropaleontology, but Professor Barnard ignited Fred's interest in foraminifera, which has continued ever since. In 1953, Fred was awarded a Ph.D. in micropaleontology, after only two years of work on Upper Cretaceous foraminifera. He immediately (four days later) shipped off to Papua, New Guinea, as a micropaleontologist for Anglo-Iranian (later to be renamed BP), where he spent an extremely educational three years.

Fred remembers the kind help and advice given to him by Martin Glaessner on his arrival in Adelaide. In the early 1950's, British universities treated the Cenozoic as the superficial "drift" on top of the "real" geology, and Fred's only experience of Tertiary strata had been a quick field trip to the Isle of Wight. Glaessner was Fred's predecessor in the Australian Petroleum Company's laboratory in Port Moresby, and his guidance of the young, green, Ph.D. graduate, that was then Fred, was greatly appreciated.

The experience of Papua, New Guinea, in the 1950's, although difficult for a young man fresh out of London, was an extremely formative one for Fred. His task was to produce a biostratigraphy, where previous attempts had failed, of the 3-km thick Oligo-Miocene reef limestones. This required study in outcrop, no mean feat, as these pinnacle limestones, covered in primary rain forest and crawling with insects, form a terrain shunned even by Papuans. It was these trips to the Darai Hills, up the Omati and Turama rivers, that impressed on Fred the poverty and malnutrition of the local villagers and convinced him that benefits from oil could materially better their lives.

Fred's understanding of Tertiary reef limestones was greatly aided by his weekend forays on the modern reef complex off Ela Beach, Port Moresby. These trips initiated his interest in oceanography, which later became a focal point of his career. Fred's first experience with planktonic biostratigraphy also took place in Papua, through studies of the deep-water Miocene to Quaternary mudstones that overlie the reefal limestones.

On his return to the U.K. in 1956, Fred met Walter Blow, who had studied Eocene to Miocene planktonics in Trinidad and Venezuela. They had adjacent offices at the BP Research Centre and it was inevitable that they should collaborate on Oligocene to Quaternary globigerine biostratigraphy, where most of BP's exploration needs were focused at that time. The nomenclatural chaos, helped only by Bolli's work, and the need to unify and develop the planktonic biostratigraphy used by BP worldwide, gave Banner and Blow the incentive, material, and permission to analyze the routinely aquired data and also to attempt a synthesis. Several classic papers, co-authored by Fred and Walter Blow, resulted from this collaboration.

Although his 13 years at BP were extremely happy and productive, Fred felt that there were fundamentally important gaps in his knowledge, which work with BP could never fill. Why did foraminifera have tests? Why and how did they grow into such fantastically regular and complex shapes and structures? Such questions, and Fred's feeling that he didn't really understand the marine environment, led him deeper into the field of oceanography.

In 1967, Fred became Senior Lecturer in Oceanography at University College of Swansea. This appointment was in the Department of Geology, but soon Fred had developed his oceanography program from an idea to a fully fledged subdepartment, complete with ship, crew, and the first Joint Honours B.Sc. courses in Oceanography to be offered in the U.K. By 1975, Oceanography became a separate department, and Fred introduced the Single Honours B.Sc. in Oceanography, the first European university to do so.

Fred's interests in coral reefs continued during his 17 years at Swansea, and for four years in a row, field work with Tony Ramsey on the reefs of Mombasa, Kenya, occupied his summers. During that time, Fred also was Visiting Professor at the University of Sierra Leone in West Africa, supporting the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography at Fourah Bay College.

In 1980, the University of London awarded Fred a D.Sc. degree for his scientific achievement in the fields of micropaleontology and marine geology. London's lure continued, and in 1983, Fred became Emeritus Professor at Swansea, Honorary Research Professor at University College London and consultant/advisor to the BP Research Centre, Stratigraphy Branch. So, after a lengthy sojourn in oceanography, Fred returned to full-time micropaleontological research, to London and to BP.

Fred Banner has published over 60 papers and four books during his career, and his research interests continue to multiply. He is particularly excited about his recent biological work with Steve Alexander, on the how and why of benthic foraminiferal test architecture; about stratigraphical studies with Li Qianyu on microplanktonic globigerines, and; about studies of textularine wall-structure evolution with Damini Desai. These studies, when published, will continue the tradition of painstakingly detailed and careful research that Fred has exhibited over the past 35 years in diverse, but related, fields of investigation.

On a more personal note, I am happy, as one of Fred's earlier students, to say nice things about a man who never has a bad thing to say about others, and who has encouraged and nurtured the careers of literally hundreds of students over the past 20 years. It is for these attributes and contributions to his science, as well as his widely respected research achievements, that the Cushman Foundation recognizes Fred Banner with the Joseph A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research for 1987.

STEPHEN J. CULVER

Journal of Foraminiferal Research, v. 18, no. 3, p. 185-186, July 1988