Mineralogy and Petrology (1994) 51:111-112

Mineralogy ana Petrology © Springer-Verlag 1994 Printed in Austria

Preface Nicholas (Nick) Rock was marked as one-in-a-million from his inception, being born with eyes of contrasting colour. His subsequent university and professional career was to reflect this distinction from mere mortal men. He was outstanding in, and placed his individual stamp on, everything that challenged his intellect and artistic flair, whether it was music, literature, science, administration or social affairs. He met these challenges in his own distinctive way, with very wry h u m o u r and intellectual style that were his trademark. He was a true intellectual with strong community and scientific ideals, a social conscience and a vigour and vitality that were awesome to his colleagues.

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His undergraduate and postgraduate university career was outstanding, being ranked by one of his supervisors as the best student that he had been associated with at Cambridge University, a rare distinction indeed from one of the world's most respected institutions. Nick joined the British Geological Survey where he developed his strong research interests in numerical geology and the petrogenesis of alkaline rocks. Here was no public servant working to regulation, but a prolific author of papers in international journals and an international authority on the lamprophyre clan of igneous rocks. In the last few years of his life, Nick developed

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the concept that lamprophyres (that to earlier students of alkaline rocks were ill-defined) be elevated to clan status; a concept that he championed in many of his later publications. Although this idea was criticized by many alkaline rock experts and was rejected by the IUGS SubCommission on Alkaline Rock Nomenclature (of which Nick was a member), it sparked a very lively debate that lasted for several years. If has also rejuvenated our understanding, not only of the classification of these "difficult" rocks, but also of their genesis. Readers of this volume will soon recognize the pros and cons of the concept of the lamprophyre "clan" and its role in stimulating thoughts on the origin of these rocks. Nick was a highly active and incredibly efficient scientist who produced more papers, books and published computer programmes in his short lifetime than most successful scientists produce in an entire academic career. In his six years at the University of Western Australia, he was promoted from Lecture to Senior Lecturer, then Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Key Centre for Strategic Mineral Deposits, was awarded his D.Sc. by the University of Western Australia, and produced over 100 scientific articles/published computer programmes and two major textbooks. He also served on several editorial boards and scientific advisory committees, always enriching these activities with his knowledge, enthusiasm and efficiency. However, these are simply standard, and commonly overused, statistics of success. They do not begin to provide a measure of the combination of intellect, scientific knowledge, vision, drive and humour that comprised Nick Rock, the stimulating and always challenging man. His alkaline rock research was visionary and based on a philosophy of attempting to integrate data from disparate sources and of seeking for genetic links between rocks, not putting rocks into ever decreasing classification pigeonholes. In his last few years, he clearly recognized the power of the computer, not only for the development of petrological databases and manipulation of geochemical data, but also for data capture and manipulation in mineral exploration. To this end, he pioneered the development of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratory at the University of Western Australia, and was involved in the development of concept-oriented mineral exploration using GIS prior to his death~ Nick left behind, in his many publications, a legacy of his scientific work and, in his interaction with colleagues, a vision of new directions in Earth Science. His students had the privilege of working with an extraordinarily gifted scientist and generous man. It is hoped that his two sons, Malcolm and Duncan, have inherited these qualities and will carry on the tradition of excellence set by their father. The concept of a Special Volume of Mineralogy and Petrology was born through discussions between Professors Alan Edgar, David Groves and Eugen Stumpfl, and was embraced by a number of Nick Rock's colleagues and friends. It was envisaged that the Volume would contain a collection of papers on alkalinc rocks, written by colleagues and friends of Nick Rock, to acknowledge the contribution that Nick made to this research field during his short career. The response to this concept was excellent, and this Special Volume reflects this and Professor Stumpfl's dedication to its successful completion. We hope that it is well received by igneous petrologists and others worldwide, and that it will remain a testimony to the outstanding contribution of Nick Rock, to whom it is dedicated.

D. Groves and A. Edgar