Citation: Francis Saupé - SGA KGHM Krol Medal
The following citation was prepared and presented by J. Pašava (SGA Executive Secretary):
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am honored to present the citation of Dr. Francis SAUPÉ – the first recipient of a newly established SGA-KGHM KROL MEDAL. Francis R. Saupé was born on May 21, 1934 in Strasbourg (France). He first attended German elementary school, due to the annexation of Alsace by Germany from 1940 to 1944, and then in 1945 he attended French High School in Strasbourg. After that, he studied Earth Sciences at the University and School of Geology in Nancy, graduating with a Licence and an Ingénieur géologue degree. He obtained a Fullbright stipend and a graduate assistantship at the Missouri School of Mines (Rolla, Missouri) and a Ms. Min. E. (Application of Statistical Methods to the Evaluation of Mineral Deposits). He served active duty in the French Corps of Engineers, in France and Algeria for 30 months between 1960 and 1962. Then he joined the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (Vandoeuvre, France), part of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He fluently speaks and writes French, German, English and Spanish, and he has published and given talks in these languages.
In 1973, after obtaining his Doctorat d‘Etat (Habilitation) with the first monograph on the geology of the Almadén mercury deposit (Spain), he spent one year in Heidelberg on an Alexander-von-Humboldt Dozentenstipendium (1973–1974). In 1976, he was a visiting scientist at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.
His scientific interests were mercury deposits in general and also sulphur isotope geochemistry, including performing mass spectrometry. He also studied geochemistry of black shales. After retirement, he collaborated for several years with archeologists working on the use of cinnabar in Turkey and Mexico. He directed or co-directed some 20 theses, including field work on Hg, Fe, Pb-Zn, magnesite and baryte deposits in France, Italy, Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey. He was a lecturer of elementary geochemistry at the University of Nancy and gave many talks in France and abroad. He has authored and/or coauthored over 60 publications and coordinated several proceedings. He acted as reviewer for various scientific journals, such as Mineralium Deposita, Chemical Geology and others.
Dr. Francis R. Saupé is the last of the living SGA founders who served four years as SGA Treasurer (1968 –1972) and eight years as the SGA Executive Secretary (1981–1988). He wrote the first, trilingual, Constitution of the Society in 1966 and improved it in1982. Dr. Saupé also built the SGA Archive, which is presently held in Prague with the acting SGA ES. During sabbatical stay of Prof. J. Guilbert in Nancy, Dr. Saupé and Professor J. Guilbert, who became Vice-President of SEG International Affairs, had discussions about collaboration between the SGA and SEG societies. During his term as the SGA ES, Dr. Saupé organized several international meetings.
Many of us have had the pleasure of interacting and collaborating scientifically with Dr. Saupé. Although now retired, he remains interested in mineral deposits. On behalf of SGA, I would like to congratulate Dr. Saupé on this and his other successes and we wish him all the best
Letter of acceptance by F. Saupé
The following acceptance speech was delivered by Francis Saupé:
I warmly thank you, Dear President, Jan and the Council of SGA for this distinction. I am especially proud to be the first recipient in presence of the family of G. KROLL, because I personally knew him and keep a very vivid and grateful image of him. Thanks to you, Jan for your citation. The combination of the two sponsors of this medal, SGA and KGHM, well represents the spirit of G. KROLL, uniting unsepately teaching, science and industry, one being a leading society in economic geology and the other, one of the diversified world leaders in mining and metallurgy.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
this is a welcome opportunity to insist on the crucial role G. KROLL played in the first times of SGA and Mineralium Deposita. C. AMSTUTZ was the first to see the necessity of a trilingual European journal of economic geology and of an international scientific society to support it. Thus, in June 1965, he gathered in Heidelberg a group of 7, besides himself, André BERNARD, Gerardus KROLL, Jean LOMBARD, Albert MAUCHER, Paul RAMDOHR, and Pierre ROUTHIER. They decided to establish a journal and the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits, to set up a Provisional Executive Committee with G. KROLL as the President. The title of the Journal, Mineralium Deposita, an akward Latin but a great hit, was proposed by P. ROUTHIER and unanimously accepted.
G. KROLL called in the first Committee meeting in November 1965, again in Heidelberg, with an enlarged group. Soon, the Treasurer, J. OTTEMANN had to resign for health reasons and I was asked to jump in. This was quite challenge for a young scientist to take over this responsibility and to work with these well established scientists, all in age to be his father. As I am the only survivor of this first SGA Committee (some kind of a dinosaur of SGA …), I share in thought this distinction with them, since we did a cooperative work.
It was a great time working with G. KROLL and under his guidance. Besides his innate sense of diplomacy, he brought from his professional experience as the Chief Geologist and a Director of Billiton Maatschappij a great capacity of management, the ability to coordinate people with different backgrounds and nationalities, to take the right decisions rapidly, to limit discussions in time and to develop a great efficiency. Without him, SGA would not have started as easily and rapidly.
J. GUILBERT also deserves mentioning. During my secretaryship, he spent a sabbatical in Nancy in the 80‘ and at that time was Vice-President of SEG in charge of International Affairs. Our discussions improved the mutual understanding of both societies, although a simplified admission procedure for members of one society to the other already existed, as well as an „ex officio“ membership in the Council of one society of the President and Secretary of the other. Later as a President (1983–1985), P. EVRARD launched the idea of Biennial meetings to complete the symposia, excursions and workshops SGA already organized each year. For organizational reasons, this was postponed until the 25th anniversary of SGA, when M. PAGEL, then Executive Secretary of SGA, masterly organized the first Biennial meeting of SGA in Nancy in 199I. It was the great exit, many still remember.
Let me close with the last sentence of my farewell letter when I resigned from the position of Secretary in 1988: „Much has been done, more remains to be done“. Over the years, I saw with pleasure the positive evolution of SGA: the Biennial meetings continue with growing exit, the membership tripled, the impact factor more than doubled, there is an increasing implication of non-Europeans in membership and management of the Society, just to quote a few of them.
Again my warm thanks for this distinction and long life to SGA!