Rolf W. Feyling-Hanssen was bom in Kirkenes, Norway in 1918. After graduating from the University of Oslo in 1945. he started his micropaleontological career in Norway, initially employed by the Geological Survey of Norway and later by the Paleontological Museum in Oslo. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oslo in 1963 on the basis of an extensive study of benthic foraminiferal stratigraphy and paleoecology of Late Quaternary deposits in the Oslofjord area.

Feyling-Hanssen moved to Denmark in 1965, where he established the Department of Micropaleontology at the University of Aarhus and worked as a professor until his retirement in 1988. In Denmark, he continued his quantitative studies of foraminifera, focusing on mid- and highlatitude Quaternary stratigraphy. During his 40 years as a micropaleontologist, he published a remarkable number of scientific papers (about 75 titles). In addition to the scientific side of Feyling-Hanssen's personality, he has a remarkable natural gift for writing popular articles and poems or delivering a speech. He enjoys using and exhibiting his pronounced sense of humor and the poetic vein in his personality.

Quaternary stratigraphic studies in the North Sea region were among Feyling-Hanssen's greatest interests. For several years, he worked intensively on Quaternary benthic foraminiferal stratigraphy in the Jæren area in southwest Norway. He later initiated similar studies in northern Denmark, involving his first students there in a research effort that is still going on. By introducing a field course in north Jutland, Denmark, Feyling-Hanssen also made the Quaternary geology and micropaleontology of this region known among students and colleagues from many neighboring countries.

Feyling-Hanssen also applied micropaleontology to geotechnical studies, first through his work with landslide problems in raised marine deposits and later in connection with geotechnical site investigations for the construction of oil production platforms in the North Sea.

Feyling-Hanssen participated in many field activities in the Arctic. From 1948-52, he carried out field work during three summer seasons in Spitsbergen, Norway, and one in East Greenland (with Norsk Polarinstitutt). In 1960, he led an expedition to Spitsbergen in connection with the XIXth Geographical World Congress "Norden". In addition to his foraminiferal studies, Feyling-Hanssen's scientific research in the Spitsbergen area included a monograph and several papers on molluscan stratigraphy.

In the field season of 1966, Feyling-Hanssen collected samples for micropaleontological analysis along the coasts of the Clyde Foreland on the east coast of Baffin Island, Canada (with the Geological Survey of Canada) This work was followed in 1974 and 1976 by field work in Broughton Island and Qivituq Peninsula, Baffin Island (with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Boulder, Colorado).

Feyling-Hanssen's increasing interest in Neogene stratigraphy, and especially in benthic foraminiferal assemblages characterizing the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition, resulted in expansion of his Canadian studies to adjacent areas in north and east Greenland (e.g., at Kap, København and Lodin Elv), and then into the entire North Atlantic region, including the North Sea. Feyling-Hanssen continued this research through the 1980s, producing a number of scientific papers on the late Pliocene and Quaternary foraminiferal assemblages of the area, including the description of the new species Elphidium funderi from the Plio-Pleistocene Kap København Formation, NE Greenland, in 1990.

Feyling-Hanssen's studies in the Arctic led to fruitful collaboration with many colleagues working in the same field, including micropaleontologists from the U.S.S.R. who studied similar assemblages in the Neogene and Quaternary along the margins of the Arctic Ocean. Feyling-Hanssen especially enjoyed his collaboration with Dr. Valentina I. Gudina at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Novosibirsk. They have kept in contact through the years since the late 1970s, and have enjoyed many fruitful discussions about taxonomic problems and Arctic Neogene and Quaternary stratigraphy. In 1984 Feyling-Hanssen was honored by Gudina and Polovova, who described the new species Elphidiella rolfi, which occurs in the transitional layers between the Pliocene and the lowermost Pleistocene in shallow-water deposits of the Arctic.

In 1974 Feyling-Hanssen spent six months with colleagues in the U.S., where he enjoyed collaborations with Professor Fred B Phleger and Dr. Francis Parker at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California. Feyling-Hanssen's work with taxonomy was especially inspired by his stay with Professors Helen Tappan and Alfred R. Loeblich at the University of California, Los Angeles, but also by a subsequent visit to Professor Martin A. Buzas at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Their collaboration resulted in a joint taxonomic work, "Emendation of Cassidulina and Islandiella helenae new species" (Journal of Foraminiferal Research, 1976).

Much earlier, during his work with Upper Quaternary deposits in the Oslofjord area in Norway, Feyling-Hanssen showed his interest in taxonomy by describing several new species of foraminifera from shelf deposits: Stainforthia loeblichi (Feyling-Hanssen, 1954); Pullenia osloensis Feyling-Hanssen, 1954; Dentalina drammenensis Feyling-Hanssen, 1964; and D. trondheimensis Feyling-Hanssen, 1964. But more frequently cited is his work with Elphidium excavatum, which appeared in the paper "The foraminifer Elphidium excavatum (Terquem) and its variant forms" (Micropaleontology, 1972). Among several international micropaleontological symposia arranged by Feyling-Hanssen at the University of Aarhus, the one specifically dedicated to taxonomic problems within the genus Elphidium is most often cited by his colleagues. Discussions resulted in agreement on several taxonomic problems, while others that were recognized are still under consideration.

Feyling-Hanssen's pleasure in systematic work also clearly influenced his teaching. Because he did not fully agree with Loeblich and Tappan (1964) as to the importance of wall structure for the classification of foraminifera, he wrote his own systematic survey for his students. His classification partly followed that of Loeblich and Tappan, but in some respects it was more influenced by classifications of Glaesner and Pokorny. Because Feyling-Hanssen's systematic works were written in Danish and never published, they are not known by many micropaleontologists outside Scandinavia; but through these works he has certainly had an important influence on the critical attitude of his own students.

Feyling-Hanssen's contact with micropaleontologists all over the world was always shared with his students, and in many respects his international contacts were integrated as part of our education. Thus, in addition to arranging international symposia and inviting guest lecturers to Arhus, he arranged a very special type of excursion for his students: instead of visiting geological sites, we often visited micropaleontological laboratories of universities, geological surveys and oil companies in neighboring countries (e.g., in Norway, U.K., the Netherlands, Germany and U.S.S.R.) to learn about different analytical methods and ideas. Feyling-Hanssen also often acted as a guest lecturer himself, and in addition he taught short courses in micropaleontology for postgraduate students, especially at other Scandinavian universities.

As a professor at the University of Aarhus for 23 years, Feyling-Hanssen educated many micropaleontologists who are now scattered over the world in scientific institutions and oil companies. With the background of his own enthusiasm for foraminiferal research, he was a very encouraging teacher and supervisor for his students, and he made Arhus a center of education and research in micropaleontology. His collections of reprints and foraminiferal reference material in Arhus are continuously being consulted by micropaleontologists and students from other countries.

In recognition of his achievements in foranliniferal research, the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research and his scientific colleagues honored Feyling-Hanssen on his 75th birthday by the dedication of a special volume, "Late Cenozoic Benthic Foraminifera: Taxonomy, Ecology and Stratigraphy" (Cushman Foundation Special Publication No. 32, 1994). On that occasion, some of Feyling-Hanssen's former students honored him by describing one new genus and one new species named after him: Rolfina arnei Laursen and Stainforthia feylingi Knudsen and Seidenkrantz.

It is with great pleasure that the Board of Directors of the Cushman Foundation presents the 1996 Joseph A. Cushman Award to Rolf W. Feyling-Hanssen for his fundamental contribution to the study of Quatemary benthic foraminiferal stratigraphy.

KAREN LUISE KNUDSEN
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Aarhus

Journal of Foraminiferal Research, v. 27, no. 1, p. 1-2, January 1997