Assemblages with multiple ”coexisting” amphiboles became the Holy Grail. Three was

1. Jim’s lecture notes on mineral structures and crystal chemistry became the foundation for many others, resulting from his fascination and advanced thinking in geometry, commonly surprising crystallographers.

4. Assemblages with multiple ”coexisting” amphiboles became the Holy Grail. Three was not difficult, but four was tricky and depended on tricky rules. Jim was always trying to go one further, and he personally ”invented” the assemblage anthophyllite-gedrite, before it was ever found in nature, first as exsolution intergrowths by Robinson et al. & Ross et al. 1969, just months before it was reported ”in the flesh” by Stout 1969.

5. In 1982 Dave Veblen organized an Amphibole Short Course, held in Kentucky. Jim lectured on the 6-coordinated octahedral strips as ducks, while the real ducks in the canal outside gave a loud expression of their own opinions, bringing down the house. (Their noise could not be shut out because of poor ventilation in the lecture room)

6. Seven of us ”descendants” tackled the problems of metamorphicamphiboles, completed on time, but published one year later in the notorious Volume IXB! (The igneous amphibologists couldn’t cut it!) Jo Laird Developed by Jim and Jo Laird, both at Zurich Barry Doolan

7. John Schumacher and Frank Spear became deeply mired in assemblages with orthoamphiboles that Jim called ”the brownschist facies”. Kase Klein and Bernard Evans talked about amphiboles in iron formations and in ultra-mafic rocks respectively, and Robinson played ”The Monster” for MSA.

8. The Phase Equilibrium Course (ca. 1958) was considered an essential and “de rigeur” to take in first year, and then audit for the next two years, usually sitting in the back and chuckling over the mistakes of the newcomers. Those who audited the first year were “wimps”. Generally, the MIT students had better luck with the math, but were snowed by the graphics, the Harvard students vice-versa. The final exam seemed like “the end” for some of us. The terror question: “Consider a function L such that .....” Huh? Next GSA John Rosenfeld began his talk “Consider a function L such that... ...”. Some time later I understood. This is the Thompson-Khorzhinski Function essential for considering systems with perfectly mobile components. Jim was fascinated by the mathematics and topology of complex surfaces, for example the Gibbs surface for a ternary miscibility gap (the dented fender analogy). He gets credit for inspiring the Gibbs surface (right) we developed in 2011 to explain metastable spinodal chemical phase separation in Fe-Ti ordering and anti-ordering during quench of ferri-ilmenite solid solutions.

9. Attendance at NEIGC was in-grained early, and became life-long for many. Jim’s first in 1946 and last in 2010. Doug Rankin, Sunday NEIGC Trip 1966 to Traveler Rhyolite – South Branch Pond Seated front to back: John Peper, Walt Trzcienski, Phelps Freeborn (hidden with hand in food box), Jon Boothroyd, two unknown, John Rosenfeld, Jim Thompson, E-an Zen. Standing front to back: Unknown, Jack McFadyen, Norm Hatch, Rolfe Stanley, Gene Boudette, Charlie Guidotti? (back to camera), Art Hussey (far left). Near picnic table: unknown. Beside the hut way back: Tom Szekely.

10. Geologic-scenic splendor derived from a Thompson field trip: West flank of Green Mountains and Vermont Valley from Danby Hill, May 1964