Dr. John E. Sanders

We report with great sadness that our long time friend and colleague, Dr. John Essington Sanders (1926-1999) passed on to that "great outcrop in the sky" in October 1999. We can easily visualize him now cutting back brush and saplings with clippers and excavating the hillside with his trusty GI Trenching Tool, tools of choice for decades. Many of you have spent quality time with John and have contacted us to share their thoughts and feelings about losing our dear friend and mentor.

True, we all miss him dearly, but would expect that he would want us "not to sulk with sadness". Rather, John would expect us to carry the torch high by instilling the need for careful scholarship and by respecting the thoughts and learned concepts of "the old wise ones". John had always been an earthbound, premier member of that group. Duke geologist CM, perhaps the luckiest of all of us for having spent so much time with John over the past twenty years, has said that he "earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University but he received his education from John Sanders". We'll miss you "Uncle John" and carry your sweet smile and sparkling eyes with us, always.

A number of former On-The-Rockers have offered to help out in getting geological information on the web and we're hoping this page will organize that effort. As such, this page will offer a place to visit for information for the On-The-Rocks Field Trip program and all of the varied projects that John and Charles were involved with. Ranging from glacial geology to high-grade metamorphic rocks, their interests merged together without the "joints". John used to always warn that "the trouble with joint publications is that you commonly see the joints". The projects that are still in hopes of completion are:

(Coming) Pictures Sent by On-The-Rockers