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Geologist Love dies in Laramie
Jackson resident mapped the state, inspired its youth.

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr.

Geologist J. David Love, who wrote the book on the Teton landscape and inspired residents to think deeply about their environment, died peacefully Friday, family members said. He was 89.

Love, who had been in ill health, had undergone gall bladder surgery recently and appeared to be recovering. But he took a turn for the worse Thursday and expired at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie the next day. Services will be held Oct. 12 in Laramie.

While he excelled in his scientific field, Love, a summer Jackson resident for decades, inspired others to look at their world in different ways.

"He was one of the few human beings who could really make the landscape come alive," said Louisa Willcox, an environmental activist who once directed the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and worked with the Sierra Club conserving grizzlies. "It was never just about the rock," Willcox said. "It was about the entire complex of the ecosystem process."

Love was born in 1913 on Muskrat Creek, 12 miles from the geographic center of the Equality State. Educated by his mother, he went on to earn a Ph.D from Yale and compile two geologic maps of Wyoming.

Love's work went beyond simple science. Once he compiled data, his incessant curiosity led him to explore how it bore on the human environment. As such, he made his speciality accessible to the public and geology a language spoken by more than just scientists.

Love was living in Laramie, his winter home, but for decades he maintained a summer place in Jackson. He and his wife, Jane, donated some of that property for employee housing when they sold their land near Snow King Resort. Today 15 families have homes there.

From his house in east Jackson, Love would launch his wilderness geologic expeditions, pecking away at exposed hillsides across the state as he meticulously compiled an unparalleled record of the earth's evolution.

Love worked for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Shell Oil Co. until 1940, when he returned to federal service full time. His work included a search for uranium and advising University of Wyoming geology students.

Love was a field geologist who spent a quarter of his life sleeping under the stars. He described many formations around Jackson Hole, and colleagues regarded him as "the grand old man of Rocky Mountain geology." As such he eventually became the subject of a study himself.

It was in 1986 that author John McPhee profiled Love in Rising from the Plains. He described the geologist thusly:

"The grand old man had a full thatch of white hair, and crow's feet around pale-blue eyes. He wore old gray boots with broken laces, brown canvas trousers, and a jacket made of horsehide. Between his hips was a brass belt buckle of the sort that suggests a conveyor. Ambiguously, it was scrolled with the word 'LOVE.' On his head was a two-gallon Stetson, with a braided-horsehair band. He wore trifocals. There was stratigraphy even in his glasses."

Love earned several honors recently, including the Rungius Award from the National Museum of Wildlife Art and, with Jane, the Teton Medal. He and Jane were married for 62 years.

At the Teton Medal ceremony, geologist Wally Ulrich of Jackson remembered the first day he met Love almost 50 years ago. Ulrich said Love always understood that the human environment "starts with the rock."

He was an open person with a "ready smile, [a] touch of mischief in his eyes," Ulrich said.

Willcox said geology was just a starting point for the ever-curious Love.

"The geology was just a lens to look at the whole," she said. The scientist was not set in his ways and was able to change his views about nuclear energy, for example, even after being part of the industry.

"He was open minded, ready and willing to rethink," she said. "That's a very rare trait these days."

Moreover, he shared his curiosity with others and inspired them to ask questions about their world. "There's a tribe of people who owe a lot of where they are to Dave's influence," she said.

An obituary will appear in next week's issue of the News.

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