Obituary of Mark Douglas Jancin , 59

Mark Douglas Jancin, PhD, geologist extraordinaire, passed away suddenly at home in State College, Pa. on Oct. 21st at age 59.

He was a devoted son, brother, and uncle, a raconteur, a teacher, a man of science with a deep philosophical streak acquired during a formative youthful year spent in Madras, India. Born in upstate New York, he spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Bethesda, Md., where he was a star basketball player until, forced to choose between two beloved team sports – basketball and cave exploration – he opted for caving and never looked back.

To enter the abrupt cool darkness and quiet of a cave with Mark as one’s guide was an unforgettable experience. He made important discoveries about cave systems and was active in cave rescue work. He was one of a kind, a true character. His great sense of humor touched everyone who knew him.

Mark graduated in 1976 from Franklin and Marshall College with a BA in Geology cum laude, and then became a graduate assistant in Geosciences at Penn State University, where he earned a PhD. His thesis research work with Prof. Barry Voight was a highlight of his life and his very strong interest in the topic continued until the day he died. He tackled mapping of the lava pile, camping out in an unnamed rugged and roadless peninsula east of Eyjafjörður in north Iceland, making daily tough kilometer-high climbs to inspect each lava flow for its detailed rock type and magnetic signature, and fault structure. Mark occupied a tent or a sheepherder shelter and the conditions could be challenging, when wind and rain came off the northern sea in squalls like the firing of a battery of cannon. But Mark found no problem at all with this, probably reflecting his affection for wet cave exploration, and in Iceland, “gja’-diving”. Mark shared the peninsula with fellow grad student Kirby Young, who worked on the west half of the peninsula, and their integrated traverses resulted in the first geologic map of the entire peninsula, a detailed assessment of its unusual structure, and a magneto-stratigraphy of the rocks that could be linked to the magnetic bands in the ocean floor. They supplemented their field work with potassium-argon isotope age dating which they carried out themselves with oversight by Prof James Aronson at Case Western University. All this work was guided collaboratively by the legendary pioneering Icelandic geologist Kristján Sæmundsson, of the Iceland National Energy Authority, who became fond of Mark’s skill and unprecedented humor. Mark returned the affection.

The results of this research were important in relation to the geological volcanic-tectonic evolution of Iceland and indeed the tectonic evolution of the north Atlantic, demonstrating ridge-jumping where the spreading axis splitting Iceland apart (a continuation of the mid-Atlantic Ridge) shifted from one location to another seven million years ago, and illuminating the nature of marine transform fault deformation. A major westward offset of the mid-Atlantic Ridge occurs off the north coast of Iceland, where it shifts from northeast Iceland to the Kolbeinsey Ridge. Remarkably, it turned out that this structure impinged on Mark’s and Kirby’s peninsula, and they were able to document the unusual nature of its deformation. The main parts of the research was published in two papers in 1985, which are still frequently cited by researchers concerned with the evolution of Iceland and the North Atlantic. Other related work by Mark, Kirby, and their colleague Nebil Orkan, on paleomagnetics and deformation, is approaching journal publication.

Mark regarded the peninsula as a magical place. Late in summer veils of green and pink northern lights illuminated the sky, and shelves of snow outlined the stacked lava flows. Rift-zone volcanoes bordered his territory, and one had the courtesy to erupt during the field seasons, and provided excitement and additional food for research. He greatly appreciated the kindness and occasional refuge provided by Skírnir Jónsson and family at the foot of the peninsula, and Örn Guðmundsson and Erla Björnsdóttir at the northern tip, so much so that his thesis was dedicated to them.

When Mark (in his words) “started field work there, there was no name for the peninsula (somewhat surprising given Icelanders’ predilection for naming virtually all things in nature). So I started to consider some informal names for the peninsula.” Mark first came up with “Náttfaraland’ (“land of the night stalker]”)– “Náttfaraland seemed a fine name – it embedded an old Iceland saga’s story, and the peninsula was directly to the east of another romantically named peninsula: Tröllaskagi (“peninsula of the trolls”).” However an official place-name committee in Reykjavík got word of Náttfaraland and rejected it on grounds that it reminded them of arctic exploration, and Mark then turned to “Flateyarskagi,” which means peninsula of the flat island, using the name of a small island off the north coast. The first use of the name Flateyjarskagi was in the papers published in the 1985 Journal of Geophysical Research. This name has since become accepted and shows up on current maps and in all subsequent investigations of the peninsula.

In 1985 Mark had a stint as Assistant Professor at Georgia Southwestern College, and in 1990 took employment in State College with his friend Walt Ebaugh at Nittany Geoscience. The firm was sequentially acquired by other companies, most recently Chester Engineers, but Mark’s work remained similar. He was Manager and Consulting Geologist of groundwater projects at many sites across the United States including Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and in Trinidad. Some of his work was collaborative with Jim Ewart, an old friend and colleague from his Iceland days.

He was an accomplished structural geologist and karst hydrogeologist, both in practice and in teaching. He had a commanding presence when speaking before a roomful of people, which came from the depth of his knowledge and from meticulous preparation. He also would leaven virtually any situation, from a geologic field camp to a meeting with government regulators, with spontaneous quips and aphorisms, delivered to the delight of his audience.

His family and friends will miss him.

Charitable gifts in his memory may be made to the Ralph Stone Research Award Fund of the National Speleological Society, which can be accessed at https://secure.caves.org/nssapps/donate.shtml.

A gathering in Mark’s memory will take place on Saturday, November 9th, at 2:00, at the home of Walter and Michele Ebaugh, 107 Redwood Lane, in State College, Pa.