No one who ever saw Roger Larson in action would consider him a shrinking violet. A great deal of his action over four decades in marine geology was in connection with scientific ocean drilling, about which he was an unabashed advocate. Roger had a particular interest in the Mesozoic geology of the Pacific, and just about the only way to deal with this huge tract of Earth’s surface beyond the examination of wiggly magnetic lineations and fuzzy profiler records was to core it. But what with thick sediments, flinty cherts, volcanic overprints, and basalt alteration, this was no simple business. Roger thus applied himself persistently, persuasively, vigorously, and with great voice to getting one drilling program after another onto the books and into the scientific literature. Roger’s passing this last May at age 63 cut short not just an eminent career in geosciences and exploration of the ocean floor, but that of one of the leading drilling scientists of his generation.

Natland, J.H. 2006. In memory of Roger Larson (1943–2006): An appreciation. Oceanography 19(4):12–13, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.31.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.