NTU. In the late nineteen nineties Dr Mike Rosenbaum left Imperial College and moved to Nottingham Trent University as Professor of Geotechnical Engineering. His job was to develop research programmes in engineering geology and ground engineering. Ken had been working with Dr R at Imperial and eventually drifted over to NTU to continue the association; he joined the geotechnical team at NTU. On 29 September 2001 Ken gave a seminar in the Civil Engineering Department, very few records of this event remain but it was recorded that he mentioned loess and Greens functions (which relate to Fourier analysis and Fourier transformations - of which more later) Loess was mentioned, the fateful word was uttered.
Dr Raj Kumar. Raj came from India to work at NTU as a visiting research fellow. He arrived in September 2002 and he and Ken set about investigating the formation of quartz silt using a model glacier system which they developed. Actually the idea of using a Bromhead ring shear machine as a model glacier had originated with Janet Wright while she was doing her PhD at Queens Belfast. She was looking at ways of producing quartz silt for loess deposits and used a Bromhead ring shear machine to produce shear and crushing stresses to break sand grains. The Bromhead was a machine designed for use in soil mechanics laboratories which could produce a long time continuous shear stress. A circular sample could be deformed by circular platens and very long term tests were possible. Janet suffered from some problems with her Bromhead; it was not her machine (borrowed from another department) she was working within the close time constraints of a PhD project; she could not make significant modifications to the machine, and and she had to test other possible methods of producing silt- she could not concentrate solely on glacial grinding. Raj and K had more freedom of action. They designed and made rougher platens to more accurately represent the ground and glacier surfaces and they had their own dedicated Bromhead machines- new state of the art Bromheads in the NTU soil mechanics laboratory. Janet did not produce much silt from her machine but the K and Raj machines were very productive. Their best result (see illustration from a paper by Markovic & Smalley) was to show the stages in the deformation of sand grains by measuring the height of the sample vs. comminution time. [It has been suggested that this was the most significant research result produced by a Bromhead- but that would doubtless be disputed]. The sand sample is deformed; initially there is some slight dilatant expansion, then particle breakage begins; the Moss defects are activated and the conversion of sand to silt is achieved relatively quickly. Long term grinding takes the system close to the comminution limit. Enormous amounts of glacial grinding can produce ground systems containing large amounts of very small quartz particles (e.g. the Canadian quickclays) but a just-right amount of grinding (say to the end of stage 3)gives the quartz silt for loess deposits.
Golden Age. The proposed Golden Age of Loess Research in East & Central Europe is from 2006 to about 2020 (the onset of Covid which closed everything down). So K was there at the start of the golden age. The seeds were sown at the LoessFest in 1999 but the golden age bloomed in 2006 with the Marsigli loess meeting at the University of Novi Sad in Voyvodina in Serbia. The beginning of a large scale appreciation of the wonders of the loess in all parts of the Danube basin but particularly in parts where the river is augmented by flows from the Drava, Tisza and Sava and other large tributaries from the Alps and the Carpathians. The Marsigli loess meeting was in Novi Sad. Marsigli is credited with the first recognition and representation of loess in the Danube bank deposits [see blog for. K visited Stari Slankamen one of the classic loess exposures- one day maybe to be the site of the Loess Museum and participated in the celebrations at the great fortress of Petrovaradin -that great bastion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. K lived in the Voyager Hotel on Strazilovska Street and ate in the Palermo cafe just around the corner.
Giotto Loess Research Group. The eccentrically named Giotto Loess Research Group came into existence at NTU. Giotto (as far as we know) had nothing to do with loess- the association is a purely NTU phenomenon. During K's time at NTU there were many reconfigurations and renamings of the civil engineering section and many moves of people and plant. NTU was building and rebuilding; the old Art School was built into a new construction in such a way that the external walls became internal divisions and this resulted in K's office being dominated by a large bas-relief of Giotto that great pioneer of Italian Art- so he gave his name to the Loess Group. He looked down on the production of Loess Letter. LL was produced at NTU from LL35 to LL65- thats fifteen years of continuous production.
The Second LoessFest. The first LoessFest was held in 1999 at Heidelberg and Bonn. This was to celebrate the naming and definition of Loess by Karl Caesar von Leonhard in 1824. It was a great success; a large international meeting to discuss all aspects of loess. The main driver of the event was Professor Edward Derbyshire and he worked hard to raise funding for as many people as possible to attend. Ten years later there was an echo- a second LoessFest held at the University of Novi Sad in Voyvodina. In 2009 travel to Novi Sad was awkward; bus to Heathrow, then flight to Zurich, flight to Belgrade, drive to Novi Sad. K was accommodated in NS at one of the residences of UNS. This was located beside the River Danube and a modest distance from UNS proper. The journey between residence and university was accomplished by a stroll along the path beside the Danube- a brilliant way to start a day of discussions. The LoessFest in 2009 was quickly followed by the GeoTrends meeting in 2010 and K had a particularly happy meeting. His best moments were spent in discussion with Biljana Basarin talking about Fourier series and Fourier transforms (the K idea of heaven). Biljana was interested in Milankovitch cycles to control climate change in the Quaternary period so she was keen to apply Fourier principles to the cyclic nature of events.
Birds in Loess. The 2011 Loess meeting was in Poland, at the University of Wroclaw. There was a field trip to the east, into Ukraine, in particular to a quarry at Korshiv (a place that used to be in Poland but is now in Ukraine- quite close to the border). Good exposures of loess in the quarry and a remarkable population of sand martins. The exposed loess banks made ideal nesting territory for the birds and it was noticeable that they chose the best parts of the loess profile to excavate and nest in. To build a nest you need excavateability and shear strength, a compromise is required- which was later named the Heneberg compromise after the pioneer investigator.. The sand martins provided a fine demonstration of the remarkable nature of loess ground, and this suggested the use of birds as a loess 'indicator' ;birds will find loess for exploring geoscientists. Actually it turned out that, as suggested by Zdzislaw Jary, the best bird as a loess indicator was the bee eater, for some time the national bird of Hungary- the great loess inhabitant. Merops apiaster- the European bee eater favours loess as nesting ground and is widespread in Europe. Four papers were produced on the bee-eater/loess interaction and these provided satisfactory indicators of loess-like ground in Africa and Australia. There appears to be no (very little) loess in Australia but the Australian bee eater- the Rainbow Bird- does indicate regions of ground which are very loess-like. The Australian interaction is of particular interest.
Windy Day meetings at Leicester(2012) & Southampton(2013). The'Windy Day' meetings were held every year; an informal discussion of aeolian geomorphology- a chance to talk about sand and loess (see blog for 6 August 2022). The 18th WD meeting was held at Leicester University and K participated. The 19th meeting was held at Southampton University and was a bit unusual in that it was a long way from the usual Midlands milieu. Ken went on the bus, and so did Arya Assadi Langroudi. Arya was going to make his first presentation at a scientific meeting and he was understandably a bit apprehensive. Ken reassured him and offered encouragement and the presentation went well. The K-AAL relationship developed and K was able to offer more support when the PhD was due to be submitted.
ED@80: at UNS in 2012. K back in the UNS residence; more walking along the Danube path, more conferences with Biljana, more exciting discussions of Fourier series and their consequences. Ed Derbyshire to UNS to celebrate his contribution to Loess world. An exciting excursion to the south-east towards Belgrade, to the Roman settlement of Viminacium and a Roman dinner complete with wine in amphorae. This was a very impressive celebration for Professor Derbyshire and led to the publication of two notable volumes of loess papers (in Catena and Quaternary International). Viminacium was largely exposed because of associated mining for near surface coal- which also exposed some remarkable mammoth remains- visited and admired. It was at this ED@80 meeting that Randall Schaetzl of Michigan St University proposed that Loess Letter be totally published online- he undertook to publish the entire LL oeuvre, which amounted to 70 issues from his base at East Lansing.
GeoTrends 2 at Wroclaw (2017). The last of the Central European adventures. K stayed at the Figa Hostel in Cybulskiego Street; Tom Hose was there and they had long conversations on most arcane topics but mostly on putting down plank floors in attic rooms. The meeting included a very impressive field trip to the south-western part of the country, into the Sudetic Geopark. Landscape models were admired.
The travellers stayed at the Hotel Sonata in Duszniki Zdroj in the Klodzko valley, very near to the Czech border- a very impressive hotel. The very final excursion was a voyage through a forest near Dobra (near Wroclaw) essentially to gather mushrooms (great care being taken to avoid collecting the rare and protected species) for dinner at the house of Zszislaw Jary- and a farewell to Poland.
Finale 2018. K drove down to Northampton for the 25th Windy Day meeting- his last scientific excursion. He took Ian Smalley and a Chinese visitor. They all admired the new Northampton campus and were very careful to return their identification devices. Ken was still writing occasional poetry and it seems fitting to end this appreciation with a few simple lines of K verse:
For the time I will reside/ In a universe in dimension five / In my immortal soul of light I am alive/ Awaiting in what new life I will survive/ So when I am gone be happy for me [KOHD]
