It is with great regret that we announce the death on October 23rd of Chalmers Clapperton, a member of the Department of Geography from 1963 to 1999, and Professor of Physical Geography from 1992.
Chalmers had been a scholar at Hawick High School and captained the Scottish Schools rugby team. This was followed by a distinguished undergraduate and doctoral career at the University of Edinburgh. Chalmers was a major figure in the world of Quaternary Science. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1992 and was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s President’s Award in 1992, the Mungo Park Medal in 1997 and the Centenary Medal in 1999.
His colleague David Sugden, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Edinburgh and a long-term collaborator of Chalmers while both were on the staff here in Aberdeen writes:
“Chalmers was a field worker par excellence and his detailed maps, always perceptive and integrated with sedimentary evidence, have proved to be the building blocks of much research in the southern hemisphere, especially South America, the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia. A pinnacle of his career was the publication of the magisterial Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology of South America in 1993. For the first time this brought together the literature in English, Spanish and Portuguese and to this day remains the first port of call for anyone interested in the Quaternary of South America. He was guest editor of an agenda-changing special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews (1990) on the Quaternary Glaciations of the Southern Hemisphere. A special South American volume of the Journal of Quaternary Science (2000) is a tribute to Chalmers following his retirement due to illness.”
Our sympathy is extended to wife Morag, sons James and Andrew, and the wider family.