Frank Clifford Whitmore Jr. (November 17, 1915 – March 18, 2012) was an American geologist including chief of the Military Geology Unit of the United States Geological Survey, vertebrate paleontologist with the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the United States Geological Survey, awardee of the Medal of Freedom, fellow of the Geological Society of America, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Penrose Medal citationist, awardee of the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Natural Science, Honorable Kentucky Colonel, member of the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration, founding member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, recipient of the Meritorious Service Award by the United States Department of Interior.
Early life and education
Whitmore was born at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 17, 1915, to Marin Gertrude (Mason) and Frank Clifford Whitmore, then a graduate student at Harvard University and later a prominent chemist. In 1934, Whitmore enrolled as an English major at Amherst College, Massachusetts. To complete his science requirement Whitmore took historical geology taught by F. B. Loomis. Whitmore was the only student who signed up so Loomis geared the class heavily on vertebrate evolution, his research interest. By the end of that year, Whitmore decided he wanted to be a vertebrate paleontologist."Cain, J. 1989. Oral history interview of Franck C. Whitmore, Jr., 8 August 1989. Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Whitmore completed his B.S. cum laude with honorable mention in geology from Amherst centered on vertebrate paleontology and his M.S. from Penn State studying paleontology under Frank M. Swartz and stratigraphy under Paul Kimitrie Kyrine. Whitmore continued his education at Harvard University, studying under vertebrate paleontologist, Alfred Sherwood Romer. Whitmore was Romer's first student from the geology department; all previous students had been from biology. Whitmore's first real field experience in vertebrate paleontology came during the summer of 1940 when he traveled with the Harvard field crew to the Uinta Basin of Utah to collect fossil mammals. While working on his doctorate Whitmore served as a teaching fellow and university fellow in paleontology.
Whitmore's doctoral study, suggested by Romer, was the cranial morphology of three Oligocene artiodactyls. Whitmore wrote, "It is the purpose of this study to examine in detail the cranial anatomy of some of these extinct genera, because endocranial characteristics are probably nonadaptive, that is, unlikely to be influenced by the environment, and therefore useful in determining the taxonomic position of groups of animals."Whitmore, Frank C. 1953. Cranial morphology of some Oligocene Artiodactyla. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 243-H: 117-159. For this study, a serial sectioning apparatus was designed and built by F. Russell Olsen of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. This sectioning technique, perfected for paleobotany with cellulose acetate peels, was adapted for vertebrates and described in a paper by Olsen and Whitmore.Olsen, F.R. and Whitmore, F.C., Jr. 1944. Machine for serial sectioning of fossils. Journal of Paleontology 18:210-215. It was a pioneering achievement in its approach and formed the basis of later work by others, in which details of cranial anatomy such as blood circulation, ear morphology, and brain configuration have been used in polygenetic studies of fossil mammals.
Career as teacher, geologist and World War II
Whitmore's first postgraduate job was a teaching position at Rhode Island State College (now the University of Rhode Island) from 1942 to 1944. When the Army Specialized Training Program came to the college, he also taught economic and political geography. Preparation for these courses aided him most in the next phase of his career.
In March 1944, Whitemore was hired by the U.S. Geological Survey to edit classified reports in the one-year old Military Geology Unit. By September 1945, he had become chief editor, supervising four geologists and 15 typists and draftsmen. Whitmore moved to the Engineer Intelligence Division, Southwest Pacific Area. His position as scientific consultant on terrain intelligence took him first to Manila, where he organized the Natural Resources Section of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, in preparation for the occupation of Japan. After two months, he relocated to Tokyo, where he served as chief of the Engineering Geology Unit, Natural Resources Section. He supervised the field checking of terrain intelligence reports and consulted with the U.S. Army on foundation conditions, location of construction materials, and selection of airfield and port sites. Whitmore became a commodity specialist in precious metals, compiling data on gold and silver production in Japan. As Whitmore tells it, "Since I was the paleontologist and didn't know much, they looked around for the least harmful thing for me to do. That's how I was put in charge of the precious metals. My job was mainly to hold audience with Japanese gold and silver mine operations and tell them 'no,' they could not mine gold. It was the perfect bureaucrat's job, sitting there all day saying 'no.' I was also in charge of the vaults of Japan, where I saw more money than I will ever see again, with piles of sheet gold one meter on a side."Paleo News. There were also stacks of platinum crucibles and "buckets of diamonds."
One example the unit's work was the identification of where Japanese Fire Bomb Balloons were being launched. From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,300 of fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were ineffective as weapons; causing only six deaths (from one single incident) and a small amount of damage. Some of the ballast sandbags dropped by the balloons were taken to the Military Geology Unit for investigation. The geologists began microscopic and chemical examination of the sand to determine types and distribution of diatoms and other microscopic sea creatures, and its mineral composition. They determined that the sand could not be coming from American beaches, nor from the mid-Pacific. It had to be coming from Japan. The geologists ultimately determined the precise beaches in Japan where the sand had been taken.Whitmore, Frank C., Jr. 1954. “Military Geology.” The Military Engineer, Volume XLVI, number 311, pages 212-215C; M. Nelson and E. P. F. Rose. 2012. "The U. S. Geological Survey's Military Geology Unit in World War II: the Army's pet prophets." Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology (August 2012), 45(3):349-367. In 1946 the U.S. Army recognized his work with the highest civilian award the United States bestows, the Medal of Freedom.
While Whitmore was working in Japan a controversy broke out. The story of Peking Man fossils involved bones of Sinathropus pekingenis and other relics, which the Japanese had earlier stolen from China. Whitmore, as part of his duties, was to take custody of these specimens, pending their return to the National Geological Survey of China. But there had always been disagreement over the actual location of the specimens and the sequence of events prior to Whitmore's arrival on the scene. According to one story, in 1941 the specimens were packed in three cases marked "secret" and turned over to the U.S. Marines who were evacuating Chinwangtao, China, aboard the Dollar Line President Harrison. The liner ran aground in the Yangtze River near Shanghai on December 8, and the marines were captured. There is documentary evidence that scientists from the Tokyo Imperial University visited Peking in August, 1942, at the request of the Japanese North China Army and took the collection to Tokyo. After the surrender of Japan to the Allied powers, a letter from the Central Liaison Office of Japan alerted the Allies to the collection's existence. The natural Resources Section was directed to take action to return the specimens, and the section chief dispatched Whitmore to examine the collation. In his memo, Whitmore stated he could "find no traces of Sinanthropus."Lamp, J., and Weiwen, H. 1990. The story of Peking Man: From archaeology to mystery. Foreign Language Press, Beijing, China and Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Many believe the fossils rest at the bottom of the Yangtze River. To this day, the original fossils have never been recovered, but good casts exist and excavations at the Peking Man site have turned up additional specimens.
In the spring of 1946 Whitmore was assigned to the 24th Corps. U.S. Army in Korea to survey and map railroads, major highways, landing beaches and ports, including Inchon, which played an important part in the later U.S. invasion. While in Korea, Whitmore was promoted to chief of the Military Geology Unit.
After the war it was assumed that the Military Geology Unit would be shut down, but the war had demonstrated to the U.S. military how little it knew about foreign geology, and so the unit was transformed into the regular branch of the U.S. Geological Survey. Whitmore stayed on as chief until 1959. The branch directed worldwide activities employing about 120 scientists and support personnel, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. and field offices in Tokyo, Heidelberg, and Salzburg. Whitmore organized interdisciplinary field-mapping programs involving the study of geology, soils, vegetation, hydrology, and topography. Whitmore chaired numerous groups including the U.S. Geological Survey's Geologic Division Staffing Committee and the committee to compile permafrost terms for the first and second editions of the American Geological Institute's Glossary of Geology. He also served as security officer for the Geologic Division between 1948 and 1956.
In recognition of the International Geophysical Year in 1958, the Lake Peters Research Station (renamed the G. William Holmes Research Station in 1970) was established in the northeastern part of the Brooks Range of Alaska. Whitmore was on the team that conducted the initial reconnaissance at this offshoot of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow and formulated plans for continuing research in the area.
Career as vertebrate paleontologist
After 15 years of administration, Whitmore joined the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey as a senior specialist in vertebrate paleontology. He was assigned an office at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Whitmore became the informal chief of the survey's vertebrate paleontology staff, which included Charles Repenning at the Menlo Park, California, office and Ed Lewis at the Denver, Colorado, office. Whitmore launched a series of diverse investigations. In 1959 and 1960, he collected and studied Miocene and Pleistocene vertebrates from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, as part of the work done by the Engineering Geology Branch. His biostratigraphy of that complexly deformed area helped determine the history of Pleistocene deformation on the island.