John Robert de Laeter
Encyclopedia
John Robert de Laeter, AO, FTSE
, FAIP (3 May 193316 August 2010) was an Australia
n scientist with a distinguished career across several fields in Nuclear physics
, Cosmochemistry
, Geochronology
, Isotope geochemistry
. He was also a prominent administrator and promoter who oversaw the establishment of several scientific research and education centres in Western Australia.
, Western Australia
. He attended South Perth Primary School on Forrest Street and then won a scholarship to Perth Modern School
in Subiaco
. At the University of Western Australia
he achieved first class honours in physics and education to start a career as a science teacher.
in the late 1950s, de Laeter attended a science teachers’ conference in Sydney
, where he described the following:
Further University studies culminated in a thesis on the isotopic composition of terrestrial and meteoritic tin
and a PhD in 1966. After researching nuclear physics at McMaster University
in Canada on a National Research Council of Canada
Fellowship, de Laeter returned to Australia in 1968 as inaugural head of the Department of Physics at West Australian Institute of Technology (the predecessor of Curtin University).
De Laeter's scientific interests were broad, but centred on the application of mass spectrometry techniques in cosmochemistry and nuclear physics. He is credited with refining the isotopic composition and atomic weight measurements of elements, including antimony
, barium
, tin
and ytterbium
. This work also lead to mass spectrometric investigations of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor
to better understand the diffusion and retentivity of various fission products in the context of managing man-made nuclear waste.
Recognising the application of mass spectrometry methods to geology in the 1970s and 1980s, de Laeter also established a series of projects with the Geological Survey of Western Australia
and the University of Western Australia
to develop geochronology capabilities based on the rubidium-strontium
, samarium-neodymium
and uranium-lead
decay schemes. These projects produced a series of publications that established the geochronological framework of Western Australian geology, for example in the Pilbara craton
and establishing the extreme age of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane
of the Yilgarn craton
.
and establishing a SHRIMP Lab in 1994 that became the core of the John de Laeter Centre for Isotope Research. De Laeter's strong interest in the SHRIMP instrument developed by a doctoral colleague, Bill Compston, at the Australian National University is credited for the commercial development of this technology.
The early interest in science education continued with significant leadership of projects establishing the Science and Mathematics Education Centre at Curtin University, the Scitech Discovery Centre and the Gravity Discovery Centre
at Gingin. He also contributed to the literature on science education.
De Laeter retired in 1995. A symposium to mark his retirement was notable for one of the last public speeches by Mark Oliphant
. This was noted as a very fitting tribute, because Mark Oliphant had given a lecture in 1950 that had inspired Peter M Jeffrey - John de Laeter's PhD supervisor - to begin the pioneering work in mass spectrometry and geochronology in Australia.
for service to Australian society in environmental science and technology.
He also had a minor planet, 3893 DeLaeter
, named after him in recognition for his support of the Perth Observatory
.
Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering is an independent non-government organization dedicated to the promotion in Australia of scientific and engineering knowledge to practical purposes. Professor Robin Batterham is the current President of ATSE....
, FAIP (3 May 193316 August 2010) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n scientist with a distinguished career across several fields in Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
, Cosmochemistry
Cosmochemistry
Cosmochemistry or chemical cosmology is the study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe and the processes that led to those compositions. This is done primarily through the study of the chemical composition of meteorites and other physical samples...
, Geochronology
Geochronology
Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments, within a certain degree of uncertainty inherent to the method used. A variety of dating methods are used by geologists to achieve this, and schemes of classification and terminology have been proposed...
, Isotope geochemistry
Isotope geochemistry
Isotope geochemistry is an aspect of geology based upon study of the relative and absolute concentrations of the elements and their isotopes in the Earth. Variations in the abundance of these isotopes, typically measured with an isotope ratio mass spectrometer or an accelerator mass spectrometer,...
. He was also a prominent administrator and promoter who oversaw the establishment of several scientific research and education centres in Western Australia.
Early life and education
John Robert de Laeter was born on 3 May 1933 in South PerthSouth Perth, Western Australia
South Perth is a residential suburb 3 kilometres south of the central business district of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, which adjoins the southern shore of Perth Water on the Swan River...
, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. He attended South Perth Primary School on Forrest Street and then won a scholarship to Perth Modern School
Perth Modern School
Perth Modern School is an academically-selective co-educational public high school located in Subiaco, an inner city suburb of Perth, Western Australia.The school, established in 1911, now caters for students with high academic ability....
in Subiaco
Subiaco, Western Australia
Subiaco is an inner western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, situated to the north west of Kings Park. Its Local Government Area is the City of Subiaco.-History:Prior to European settlement the area was home to the Noongar Indigenous people....
. At the University of Western Australia
University of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia was established by an Act of the Western Australian Parliament in February 1911, and began teaching students for the first time in 1913. It is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia and the only university in the state to be a member of the...
he achieved first class honours in physics and education to start a career as a science teacher.
Scientific career
De Laeter began teaching in 1957 at the Perth Technical College. While teaching at Bunbury High SchoolBunbury Senior High School
Bunbury Senior High School is a comprehensive public high school located in Bunbury, a regional centre south of Perth, Western Australia.The school was established in 1923 and by 2009 had an enrolment of 917 students between Year 8 and Year 12, 28 of whom were Aboriginal.The school is the fourth...
in the late 1950s, de Laeter attended a science teachers’ conference in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, where he described the following:
- I heard two of the world’s experts battling it out on how the universe began – the Big Bang Theory versus Steady State Cosmology. It inspired me and I decided there and then to go back to university and do a PhD in physics and get involved in these astrophysical questions.
Further University studies culminated in a thesis on the isotopic composition of terrestrial and meteoritic tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
and a PhD in 1966. After researching nuclear physics at McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
in Canada on a National Research Council of Canada
National Research Council of Canada
The National Research Council is an agency of the Government of Canada which conducts scientific research and development.- History :...
Fellowship, de Laeter returned to Australia in 1968 as inaugural head of the Department of Physics at West Australian Institute of Technology (the predecessor of Curtin University).
De Laeter's scientific interests were broad, but centred on the application of mass spectrometry techniques in cosmochemistry and nuclear physics. He is credited with refining the isotopic composition and atomic weight measurements of elements, including antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
, barium
Barium
Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in Group 2, a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. Barium is never found in nature in its pure form due to its reactivity with air. Its oxide is historically known as baryta but it reacts with...
, tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
and ytterbium
Ytterbium
Ytterbium is a chemical element with the symbol Yb and atomic number 70. A soft silvery metallic element, ytterbium is a rare earth element of the lanthanide series and is found in the minerals gadolinite, monazite, and xenotime. The element is sometimes associated with yttrium or other related...
. This work also lead to mass spectrometric investigations of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor
Natural nuclear fission reactor
A natural nuclear fission reactor is a uranium deposit where analysis of isotope ratios has shown that self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions have occurred. The existence of this phenomenon was discovered in 1972 at Oklo in Gabon, Africa, by French physicist Francis Perrin. The conditions under...
to better understand the diffusion and retentivity of various fission products in the context of managing man-made nuclear waste.
Recognising the application of mass spectrometry methods to geology in the 1970s and 1980s, de Laeter also established a series of projects with the Geological Survey of Western Australia
Geological Survey of Western Australia
The Geological Survey of Western Australia is an authority within the Department of Mines and Petroleum of the Government of Western Australia that is responsible for surveying and exploration of Western Australia's geological resources....
and the University of Western Australia
University of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia was established by an Act of the Western Australian Parliament in February 1911, and began teaching students for the first time in 1913. It is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia and the only university in the state to be a member of the...
to develop geochronology capabilities based on the rubidium-strontium
Rubidium-strontium dating
The rubidium-strontium dating method is a radiometric dating technique that geologists use to determine the age of rocks.Development of this process was aided by Fritz Strassmann, who later went on to discover nuclear fission with Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner....
, samarium-neodymium
Samarium-neodymium dating
Samarium-neodymium dating is useful for determining the age relationships of rocks and meteorites, based on decay of a long-lived samarium isotope to a radiogenic neodymium isotope. Nd isotope ratios are used to provide information on the source of igneous melts as well as to provide age data...
and uranium-lead
Uranium-lead dating
Uranium-lead is one of the oldest and most refined of the radiometric dating schemes, with a routine age range of about 1 million years to over 4.5 billion years, and with routine precisions in the 0.1-1 percent range...
decay schemes. These projects produced a series of publications that established the geochronological framework of Western Australian geology, for example in the Pilbara craton
Pilbara craton
The Pilbara craton , along with the Kaapvaal craton are the only remaining areas of pristine Archaean 3.6-2.7 Ga crust on Earth...
and establishing the extreme age of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane
Narryer Gneiss Terrane
The Narryer Gneiss Terrane is a geological complex in Western Australia that is composed of a tectonically interleaved and polydeformed mixture of granite, mafic intrusions and metasedimentary rocks in excess of 3.3 billion years old, with the majority of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane in excess of 3.6...
of the Yilgarn craton
Yilgarn craton
The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton which constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts...
.
Research and education leadership
As the West Australian Institute of Technology evolved into Curtin University of Technology, De Laeter became Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Development and provided important administrative service and guidance to several major projects including the Technology ParkTechnology Park (Bentley)
Officially opened in 1985, Technology Park Bentley is Australia’s second oldest Technology Park.In 1987 the Western Precinct was opened, housing the prestigious Australian Resources Research Centre .- About the Park :...
and establishing a SHRIMP Lab in 1994 that became the core of the John de Laeter Centre for Isotope Research. De Laeter's strong interest in the SHRIMP instrument developed by a doctoral colleague, Bill Compston, at the Australian National University is credited for the commercial development of this technology.
The early interest in science education continued with significant leadership of projects establishing the Science and Mathematics Education Centre at Curtin University, the Scitech Discovery Centre and the Gravity Discovery Centre
Gravity Discovery Centre
The Gravity Discovery Centre is a "hands-on" science education centre, situated on the site of the Australian International Gravitational Observatory, near Gingin, north of Perth, Western Australia....
at Gingin. He also contributed to the literature on science education.
De Laeter retired in 1995. A symposium to mark his retirement was notable for one of the last public speeches by Mark Oliphant
Mark Oliphant
Sir Marcus 'Mark' Laurence Elwin Oliphant, AC, KBE, FRS was an Australian physicist and humanitarian who played a fundamental role in the first experimental demonstration of nuclear fusion and also the development of the atomic bomb.During his retirement, Oliphant was appointed as the Governor of...
. This was noted as a very fitting tribute, because Mark Oliphant had given a lecture in 1950 that had inspired Peter M Jeffrey - John de Laeter's PhD supervisor - to begin the pioneering work in mass spectrometry and geochronology in Australia.
Awards and Honors
De Laeter was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to science education in 1992 and received a Centenary MedalCentenary Medal
The Centenary Medal is an award created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the Centenary of Federation of Australia and to honour people who have made a contribution to Australian society or government...
for service to Australian society in environmental science and technology.
He also had a minor planet, 3893 DeLaeter
3893 DeLaeter
3893 DeLaeter is a main-belt asteroid discovered on March 20, 1980 by M. P. Candy at the Perth Observatory.- External links :*...
, named after him in recognition for his support of the Perth Observatory
Perth Observatory
The Perth Observatory is the name of two astronomical observatories located in Western Australia.-First Perth Observatory:The original Perth Observatory was constructed in 1896 and was officially opened in 1900 by John Forrest, the first premier of Western Australia. The observatory was located at...
.