I imagine that each of us assembled here from various parts of the globe have decided to show up because we have developed a personal relationship over the years with Nick Rast. Many of us know Nick as a delightful, highly respected fellow geologist; others as a demanding professor, or mentor who “goes the extra mile” for his students or both. If my own experience is typical, most of us have been drawn here because of our common bond of admiration for, and friendship with, Nick but also because we thought it would be fun!

To be associated with Nick is probably something different for each of us, but for all I think it is safe to say that it is an “Adventure.” So during these days we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as individuals and as a group to review highlights of our memories of a true “Renaissance Man” and “Maverick.” I think it should be both fun and inspiring to reflect on highlights of the scientific and personal accomplishments of a truly brilliant person who has marched to the beat of his own drummer. This is also an opportunity to share some stories about a man who has an enormous capacity for friendship.

Professor Nicholas Rast, 1975

The British Isles are the site of Nicholas Rast’s formal geological education. The British Isles and Ireland are the birthplace of many fundamental concepts on which our understanding of geology is based. Nick and his former students from overseas, many of them now distinguished scientists in their own right, have known and worked with some geologists of an earlier generation who are rightly considered giants or legends.

When Nick was a graduate student at the University of Glasgow, for example, he served as field assistant to the larger than life, Sir Edward Bailey, who was not only a giant in scholarship but physically an imposing figure as well. If Nick takes time out from fieldwork for lunch, and if he is stylish in his field attire, it is not in imitation of Sir Edward. In spite of his title, Sir Edward cultivated spartan habits in the field rarely stopping to eat lunch. On Nick’s first day in the field with Sir Edward, he was assured by the great geologist that he would furnish lunch. Long after noon Sir Edward produced a chocolate bar, “Here is your lunch, Rast.” When the great man got a new pair of field boots, he would right away puncture them with holes and then each morning wade through the first brook they encountered. The theory was that once you got your feet wet you stopped worrying about whether you would get wet, and moreover in wading the stream, the water that came in flowed out just as rapidly.

Moreover, Sir Edward was accustomed to stride through the heather attired in trousers cut off above the knees to the amazement of the Highlanders, I am told. Sir Edward was what we might call a trend-setter in his field attire 50 to 100 years ahead of modern styles, he was more importantly a trend-setter in his mapping and portrayal of complexly deformed metamorphic rocks.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Nick was born June 20, 1927 in Teheran, Iran of a Russian mother and British father. After primary and secondary education, he graduated from the Technical Institute in Abidan, Iran in 1947 with a background in Industrial Chemistry finishing first in competition for training in the United Kingdom. His undergraduate studies in London resulted in 1952 in a B.Sc. degree with Honors in Geology with Chemistry as Ancillary. Nick then completed residency studies at the University of Glasgow and served initially as Assistant Lecturer, and from 1955 to 1959 became Lecturer in the University of Wales in Aberystwyth.

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