Richard Joel Russell (1895-1971): Coastal Enthusiast
by H. Jesse Walker (LSU)
For more information about Richard and a list of his publications see
the National Academies Press, Biographical Memoirs, Vol. 46
When one considers R.J. Russell's upbringing, education, and
early interests, it is somewhat surprising that today he is remembered
mainly for his floodplain and coastal research. Richard Joel Russell was
born in California in 1895 and, although he spent part of his youth
(between the ages of four and eight) in Hawaii, his grade school and
high school training took place at the foot of the Coastal Range in
Hayward, California. He had plenty of opportunity to look west at the
Hayward mudflats (some of which were in Russellville, a town on San
Francisco Bay named after his grandfather), but instead headed for the
hills and mountains every chance he had. His high school training
included a course in physical geography which used a textbook by Wm.
Morris Davis, thus he was indoctrinated early with the Davisian
approach to landscape development. He was precocious--learning to
type at nine, photographing the San Francisco earthquake (1906) at 11,
publishing an article on the printing of color photographs at 17, and
winning an automobile race (60 m.p.h.) at 19.
He loved hiking, horses, and mountains and, when it came time
to decide on a career, chose forestry, which could combine all three of
those outdoor activities. With this interest in mind he enrolled at the
University of California-Berkeley in the College of geology and
obtained his first degree in vertebrate paleontology. While working on
his doctorate, Russell spent four summers studying the structure and
stratigraphy of the Warner Range in northeastern California. He was
destined to become a structural geologist and indeed several of his
earliest papers fit into that category. However, during that same period
of time, Russell taught in Carl O. Sauer's geography department, went
into the field with Wm. M. Davis, and began research in climatology.
In 1926, the year he received his doctorate, Russell joined Texas
Tech as an Associate Professor. Because of Russell's training, Texas
Tech was probably a more logical place for him than Louisiana State
University, but when his old colleague and friend, Henry Howe, asked
him to join him in developing a strong, broad-based School at LSU,
Russell readily accepted. With a very catholic view toward science,
Russell enjoyed teaching a variety of courses. Further, he especially
relished field work, an endeavor that became a hallmark of the School
and an activity which Russell engaged in until the last year of his life
(1971).
Russell remarked that coming to Louisiana was a physiographic
shock. The Mississippi floodplain was a form he had not thought about
except as an example of Davis' "old age," which, as he noted later, "is a
misnomer because the Mississippi floodplain is among the youngest of
all landforms." The shock soon wore off and Russell immersed himself
in low-lying, wet-land environmental research. During his first 28 out
of 43 years at LSU, he concentrated on alluvial morphology, the
Quaternary Period, sea-level change, and deltaic physiography. These
studies established Russell as a leader among students of rivers,
floodplains, and deltas throughout the middle five decades of the 20th
century.
Russell wrote that when he discovered that alluvial morphology
is an exciting field of research he discovered "a new way of life!"
Russell's (1933) first Louisiana paper, "Larto Lake, an Old Mississippi
River Channel," led to his classic volume, "Physiography of the Lower
Mississippi River Delta" (1936). In it, he discussed load-induced
subsidence and, with H. Howe, the Gulf Coast geosyncline. In that
volume Russell also discussed the rapid rate of coastal retreat in
Louisiana, a retreat that, based on many of the articles published today,
is considered a "recent discovery." In those early days Russell expanded
his base and included research on other rivers, such as the Rhone in
France and the Meander in Turkey.
Much of Russell's early research was concerned with deltas.
However, in Russell's mind at the time, they were not so much a coastal
feature as an extension of a river floodplain. It was not until Russell
turned 60 that he seriously turned to coastal research. He thought it was
time for a change and so "embarked on ... the investigation of possible
relationships between mineral composition and beach morphology." He
selected the Lesser Antilles as the location to begin his studies because
they possess volcanic, organic, and quartz-sand beaches. On his way to
the International Geographical Congress in Brazil in 1956 he stopped at
six of the area's islands. On St. Lucia, he was introduced to beach rock
by two colleagues. Not being one to pass up an interesting challenge,
Russell delved into the study of beach rock, which was to occupy much
of his research time for the next seven years.
During that seven years Russell, often with Wm. G. McIntire,
visited many of the West Indians islands, Hawaii, Fiji, Cocos Keeling,
Mauritius, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and those
Mediterranean coasts where beach rock is present. He wrote at least
eight papers on the subject and in most them the importance of the
water table on beach-rock formation was emphasized. Indeed, he was
still researching the importance of the water table on coastal
development at the time of his death--his last paper, "Water-Table
Effects on Sea Coasts" (1971) was published posthumously.
Although most of Russell's coastal work was with sandy beaches
he did study to some extent fine-grained beaches and cliffy coasts. One
of his premises was that "any morphological feature associated directly
with an existing sea level must have originated in an amazingly short
time," an idea he used in connection with his paper "Recent Recession
of Tropical Cliffy Coasts," which was published in Science. Because of
his cliffy-coast research, Russell argued for a relatively stable still-stand
sea level for the past 10,000 years. He was also interested in
Quaternary sea levels and in that connection studied elevated notches,
especially in Oahu and Jamaica.
A logical extension of Russell's interest in beach rock was the
study of algal and coral flats. In his tropical travels he noted many
locations where algae coated coastal rocks of different types. An
advocate of precise, terminology, Russell thought the term coral reef
should be limited to those reefs where corals are in the same relative
positions they had when alive and that a reef flat is composed of
fragmental reef debris and is normally found landward of the active
reef.
Although most people will remember R.J. Russell for his
research, especially riverine and coastal, there are some other
characteristics that should be noted. He was an administrator (Dean of
the Graduate School at LSU for 12 years), he was an organizer (creating
Coastal Studies Institute in 1954), he was a leader (becoming president
of both the Association of American Geographers [1948] and the
Geological Society of America [1957]), and he was frequently honored
(becoming a member of the National Academy of Sciences [1959] and a
recipient of numerous other honors).
Russell, first and foremost, was a scientist. He wrote that a
"scientist is motivated by curiosity." He enjoyed discovering facts,
speculating about their meanings, drawing conclusions, and publishing
the results. He believed that scientists have an obligation to share their
ideas and subject them to scrutiny and evaluation. To his students and
colleagues he said "go into the field with enthusiasm" and study some of
the many interesting features that are so abundant in all environments.
For many of us the coast is the logical place to continue our efforts
"with enthusiasm."