The
passing of Fred Grassle is a real loss to our entire community of benthic
ecologists and polychaete systematists. Along with Howard Sanders, he
revolutionized the way deep-sea benthos was studied and understood. On a
personal level, Fred influenced my career in
many ways, from being on my graduate committee while I was at Boston
University, to teaching me to NEVER discard a fragment of a deep-sea animal
no matter how unidentifiable
, to being co-PI on the major Atlantic Slope and Rise studies carried out
in the 1980s when he was at Woods Hole and Jim and I were at Battelle. The
American Naturalist
paper that Fred invited me to co-author on the Mid-Atlantic study remains
my most cited publication
, if not his. Fred encouraged and mentored so many students and early
professionals, I am sure his work will be carried forward; I am just so
sorry that we had to part ways with him so soon.
Nancy
On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 1:22 PM, James Blake <jablake9 from gmail.com> wrote:
> I have the sad duty to report that John Frederick Grassle (Fred) passed
> away July 6 2018, at the age of 78 after a long illness.
>>
