FRED MASON BULLARD
(1901-1994)
Fred Mason Bullard was born July 20, 1901, on Kickapoo Indian lands, Indian
Territory, now Oklahoma, where his father had homesteaded. He obtained the BS
and MS degrees in Geology at the University of Oklahoma and his PhD degree from
the University of Michigan in 1928. He worked for a few years as Field Geologist
for the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He joined the faculty of the Department of
Geology at UT-Austin in 1924. There he had a professional career in teaching and
research for 70 years. Professor Bullard was known as an outstanding teacher of
large introductory geology courses for more than four decades. A colleague once
calculated the thousands of students that Bullard had taught and concluded that
he probably taught the largest number of introductory geology students in North
America. Many of these students made careers in geology and many became pioneers
in the petroleum industry. He was greatly admired and loved by his students,
colleagues and friends, and kept in touch with many of them over the many
decades of his professional life. The span of his career offered him the chance
to teach the children and grandchildren of his early students, and during his
travels he constantly met people who came up to him to say, "Dr. Bullard, I was
a student in your class in 19--".
Professor Bullard also taught a course in volcanology and in the 1920s regularly
taught the summer geology field course in central Texas. Some of his experiences
were told in the Newsletter of the Department of Geological Sciences.
Bullard served as Chairman of the Geology Department from 1929 to 1937. He
designed and helped draw the plans for the first Geology Building on the UT
campus, and personally selected the furnishings as well. He designed the fossil
frieze that decorates the building's exterior, indelibly and forever signifying
its dedication to geology (although it is now designated the Hogg Building). At
the time that Dr. Bullard served as Chairman, he was only an Associate
Professor, and thus not eligible to vote on budgetary matters: such matters were
reserved for Professors.
Bullard served as a visiting professor at a number of schools through the years,
including the University of Michigan, Columbia University, the National
University of Mexico in Mexico City (UNAM), Vassar College, and Northern Arizona
University. He served in the Visiting Scientists Program of the American
Geophysical Union in 1966 and 1968-69. Other foreign assignments included
appointments as a Fulbright Research Scholar in Italy, 1952-53; Fulbright
Lecturer in Peru, 1959; and Chief of Party of the University of Texas contract
group at the University of Baghdad, Iraq, for two and a half years, 1962-1964.
This group was sent under a US Agency for International Development program to
provide "technical assistance in improving education in the sciences and
engineering" to the University of Baghdad. Nine professors and their families
were in the group under his care, four in the sciences and five in engineering.
On his first day in the classroom in the University of Baghdad, Dr. Bullard
introduced himself and urged students to raise their hand if he used a word they
did not understand. All nodded in agreement. He took a breath and began,
"Geology is the science of the Earth", whereupon a hand went up. The student
asked, "What is Earth, professor?" Professor Bullard recalled thinking that it
was going to be a long, long semester.
Fred Bullard regularly attended the annual meetings of the American Association
of Petroleum Geologists. Even in his later years one could always find him on
the front row of a particular talk or symposium and ready with a question. Dr.
Bullard was named Distinguished Lecturer of the Association for an impressive
three times: 1943, 1945 and 1954.
Bullard’s early research included geologic mapping in Oklahoma and Texas, and
studies in invertebrate paleontology and meteorites. During WW II he published a
classical study of the heavy detrital minerals (those having high specific
gravity) of Texas beaches and the rivers supplying sand to them. His study
showed the value of heavy minerals in determining the source of sand along Texas
beaches.
Fred Bullard's interest in volcanoes was piqued while on a US Geological Survey
expedition to Alaska in 1929 where he observed an active volcano for the first
time. This led to his appointment as an assistant at the Hawaiian Volcano
Observatory in 1939, where he worked under the famous volcanologist, Dr. T. A.
Jaggar. This provided him with the background to do
the seminal geologic research on the nascent active volcano Paricutin when it
erupted out of a sleepy cornfield in Mexico in 1943. According to his own
account, "When Paricutin was born, I was teaching a course on volcanoes at the
National University of Mexico. I used it as a laboratory for my students, and
for the next seven years I spent a part of each year at Paricutin studying the
life history of this volcano. I studied the volcanoes of the Central American
countries from 1945-1957. In 1959, I extended my work to South America. In the
summer of 1960, I participated in the International Congress Field Trip to study
the volcanoes of Iceland. In 1962 I was a member of the International Symposium
on Volcanology in a study of the volcanoes of Japan."
"During the summer of 1963 I studied the volcanoes of central Turkey and the
Greek Islands. During the summer of 1964 I visited the volcanic areas of Africa,
the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores. During the summers of 1965 and 1967
I taught Volcanology in a National Science Foundation Institute for High School
science teachers at Northern Arizona University. In the fall of 1965-66 I
studied the volcanoes of the South Pacific region (Philippines, New Guinea, New
Britain, etc.) and attended the International Symposium on Volcanology in New
Zealand. During the summer of 1968 I was on an International Geologic Congress
Field Trip studying volcanics in the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia. During
the summers of 1969 and 1970 I studied the "Great Rift" at Craters of the Moon
National Monument, Idaho." Bullard's research findings and accumulated knowledge
became an original reference work on volcanoes entitled, Volcanoes: in Theory,
in History, in Eruption, published by the UT Press; a revised and enlarged
edition, including information on the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, was published
under the title, Volcanoes of the Earth. These books were best sellers among the
University of Texas Press offerings. One of the products of his studies of
Paricutin was a film on that volcano which he showed once a year to a standing
room only crowd in the Geology Building auditorium.
In his early days at UT-Austin, Fred Bullard helped organize and participated in
the activities of professional geologic organizations, including Sigma Gamma
Epsilon and Sigma XI. He helped organize the Institute for Latin American
Studies during the Roosevelt "Good Neighbor Policy" days. He was a Fellow of the
Geological Society of America, a member of the Mineralogical Society of America,
the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Emeritus Fred Bullard died July 29, 1994, in Austin, Texas. He was
actively working in his office on the last day of his life.
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