Richard L. Hay papers
name: label: Creator
content: Hay, Richard L. (Richard LeRoy), 1926-
label: Creator
content: Leakey, L. S. B. (Louis Seymour Bazett), 1903-1972
label: Creator
content: Leakey, Mary D. (Mary Douglas), 1913-1996
place: label: Place
content: Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
label: Place
content: Laetoli Site (Tanzania)
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeological geology
label: Topic
content: Geology
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives in January 2009 by Richard L. Hay's widow, Lynn Hay.
creator: label: Creator
content: Hay, Richard L. (Richard LeRoy), 1926-
label: Creator
content: Leakey, L. S. B. (Louis Seymour Bazett), 1903-1972
label: Creator
content: Leakey, Mary D. (Mary Douglas), 1913-1996
setName: label: See more items in
content: Richard L. Hay papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: Richard LeRoy Hay was a geologist, known for his contributions to sedimentary petrography and archaeological geology. This collection contains field notebooks, maps, photographs, data, and documentation of geological specimens he collected, primarily in Africa, but also in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He was known for his work with Mary Leakey, in which he provided the geological framework for Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli in Tanzania.
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Richard LeRoy Hay was a geologist, known for his contributions to sedimentary petrography and archaeological geology. He worked closely with Mary Leakey for more than thirty years and provided the geological framework for Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli in Tanzania.

Hay was born on April 29, 1926 in Goshen, Indiana. He attended Ursinus College briefly (1944-45) before transferring to Northwestern University, where he received his B.S. (1946) and M.S. (1948) in geology. In 1952, he earned his Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1952-54). 

After leaving the army, Hay worked as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey (1954-1955) and in 1955 began his academic career at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (1955-57). In 1957 he accepted a position at University of California, Berkeley and remained there until his retirement in 1983. From 1983 to 1997, Hay was Ralph E. Grim Professor of Geology at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and later had an appointment as adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson (1998-2006).

Hay made his first trip to Olduvai Gorge in 1962 and continued to research and publish numerous articles on Olduvai for the next four decades. His most significant publication was his monograph, Geology of the Olduvai Gorge (1976), in which he provided a detailed study of the geologic history of Olduvai, placing hominid remains and other archaeological findings at the site in a paleogeographic context. Also significant was his geological analysis of tuff at Laetoli bearing early hominid footprints; he coauthored with Mary Leakey "Pliocene Footprints in the Laetolil Beds at Laetoli, Northern Tanzania" (1979) and "The Fossil Footprints of Laetoli" (1982). 

In addition to Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli, Hay conducted geological fieldwork at Oldoinyo Lengai, Ngorongoro caldera, and Kerimasi volcano in Tanzania, as well as Rusinga Island, Lake Magadi, Amboseli, and Mount Suswa in Kenya. He also worked at several sites in the United States, including the John Day region of Oregon, the Green River formation in Wyoming, Amargosa Desert in Nevada, and Searles Lake in California. Additionally, he worked in west-central Wisconsin where he discovered the replacement of uppermost Precambrian and Cambrian-Ordovician rocks by low-temperature potassium-feldspar.

During his lifetime, Hay received many honors for his accomplishments in geology. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and California Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Geological Society of America's Kirk Bryan Award in 1978 and the Rip Rapp Archeological Geology Award in 2000. In 2001, he received the Leakey Foundation's Leakey Prize, awarded for intellectual achievement in the field of human evolution. Posthumously, a memorial was held for Hay at the GSA annual meeting in 2007.

Hay died at the age of 79 on February 10, 2006.

Sources Consulted

Ashley, Gail and Enrique Merino. "Memorial to Richard Leroy Hay (1926-2006)." Geological Society of America Memorials, 35 (2006): 39-43. 

"Curriculum vitae and letter." Series 2. East Africa Research. Richard L. Hay papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Chronology

1926 -- Born April 29 in Goshen, Indiana

1946 -- Earns B.S. in geology from Northwestern University

1948 -- Earns M.S. in geology from Northwestern University

1952 -- Earns Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University

1952-1954 -- Serves in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

1954-1955 -- Geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey

1955-1957 -- Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

1957-1983 -- Professor at University of California, Berkeley

1962 -- First visit to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

1978 -- Awarded Kirk Bryan Award by Geological Society of America

1983-1997 -- Ralph E. Grim Professor of Geology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

1998-2006 -- Adjunct Professor at University of Arizona, Tucson

2000 -- Awarded Rip Rapp Archeological Geology Award by Geological Society of America

2001 -- Awarded Leakey Prize by the Leakey Foundation

2006 -- Died at the age of 79 on February 10

Selected Bibliography

1963 -- Hay, Richard L. and John Stark. "Geology and Petrography of Volcanic Rocks of the Truk Islands, East Caroline Islands." U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 409, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1963. Hay, Richard L. "Stratigraphy of Beds I through IV, Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika." Science 139, no. 3557 (1963): 829–833. Hay, Richard L. "Zeolitic Weathering in Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika." Geological Society of America Bulletin 74, no. 10 (1963): 1281-1286. Hay, Richard L. "Stratigraphy and Zeolitic Diagenesis of the John Day Formation of Oregon." University of California Publications in Geological Sciences 42, no. 5 (1963): 199-262.

1966 -- Hay, Richard L. "Zeolites and Zeolitic Reactions in Sedimentary Rocks." Geological Society of America Special Paper 85, Geological Society of America, New York, 1966.

1968 -- Hay, Richard L. and A. Iijima. "Analcime Composition in Tuffs on the Green River formation of Wyoming." American Mineralogist 53 (January-February 1968): 184-200. Hay, Richard L. "Petrology of Palagonite Tuffs of Koko Craters on Oahu, Hawaii." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 17, no. 2 (1968): 141-154.

1970 -- Hay, Richard L. "Silicate Reactions in Three Lithofacies of a Semiarid Basin, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania." Mineralogical Society of America Special Paper 3 (1970): 237-255.

1972 -- Hay, Richard L. and G.H. Curtis. "Further Geologic Studies and K-Ar Dating of Olduvai Gorge and Ngorongoro Crater." In Calibration of Human Evolution, edited by W.W. Bishop and J.A. Miller, 289-301. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972.

1973 -- Hay, Richard L. "Lithofacies and Environments of Bed I, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania." Quaternary Research 3 (1973): 541-560.

1976 -- Hay, Richard L. Geology of the Olduvai Gorge. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976.

1978 -- Hay, Richard L. and R.K. Stoessell. "Geochemical Origin of Sepiolite and Kerolite at Amboseli, Kenya." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 65 (1978): 255-267.

1979 -- Hay, Richard L. and M.D. Leakey. "Pliocene footprints in the Laetolil beds at Laetoli, Northern Tanzania." Nature 278 (1979): 317-323.

1982 -- Hay, Richard L. and M.D. Leakey. "The Fossil Footprints of Laetoli." Scientific American 246 (1982): 50-57.

1983 -- Hay, Richard L. "Natrocarbonatite Tephra of Kerimasi Volcano, Tanzania." Geology 11, no. 10 (1983): 599-602.

1984 -- Hay, Richard L., H. Bowman, F.H. Stross, F. Asaro, R.F. Heizer, and H.V. Micel. "The Northern Colossus of Memnon: New Slants." Archaeometry 26 (1984), 218-229.

1986 -- Hay, Richard L., R.E. Pexton, T.T. Teague, and T.K. Kyser. "Spring-related Carbonate Rocks, Mg Clays, and Associated Minerals in Pliocene Deposits of the Amargosa Desert, Nevada and California." Geological Society of America Bulletin 97, no. 12(1986): 1488-1503.

1988 -- Hay, Richard L., F.H. Stross, F. Asaro, H.R. Bowman, and H.V. Michel. "Sources of the Quartzite of Some Ancient Egyptian Sculptures." Archaeometry 30, no. 1 (1988): 109-119.

1989 -- Hay, Richard L. "Holocene Carbonatite-Nephelinite Tephra Deposits of Oldoinyo Lengai, Tanzania." Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 37, no. 1 (1989): 77-91.

1991 -- Hay, Richard L., S.G. Guldman, J.C. Matthews, R.H. Lander, M.E. Duffin, and T.K. Kyser. "Clay Mineral Diagnesis in Core KM-3 of Searles Lake, California." Clays and Clay Minerals 39, no. 1 (1991): 84-96.

1993 -- Hay, Richard L. and R.H. Lander. "Hydrogeologic Control on Zeolitic Diagenesis of the White River Sequence." Geological Society of America Bulletin 105, no. 3 (1993): 361-376.

1999 -- Hay, Richard L., D.B. Finkelstein, and S.P. Altaner. "Origin and Diagenesis of Lacustrine Sediments, Upper Oligocene Creede Formation, Southwestern Colorado." Geological Society of America Bulletin 111, no. 8 (1999): 1175-1191.

2001 -- Hay, Richard L. and T.K. Kyser. "Chemical Sedimentology and Paleoenvironmental History of Lake Olduvai, a Pliocene Lake in Northern Tanzania." Geological Society of America Bulletin 113, no. 12 (2001): 1505-1521.

2003 -- Hay, Richard L., J. Liu, A. Deino, and T.K. Kyser. "Age and Origin of Authigenic K-feldspar in Uppermost Precambrian Rocks in the North American Midcontinent." Geological Society of America Bulletin 115, no. 4 (2003): 422-433.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 15.97 Linear feet ((13 document boxes, 3 flat boxes, 8 card file boxes, and 1 oversized box) plus 1 CD-RW and 1 map folder)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1953-2005
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.2008-09
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: This collection is organized into 8 series: (1) Correspondence with Louis and Mary Leakey, 1961-1970, 1988-1996; (2) East Africa Research, 1958-2005; (3) Non-East Africa Research, 1953-2004; (4) Sample Descriptions, 1956-2001; (5) Specimen Sample Lists, 1959-1998; (6) Publications, 1959-2004; (7) Photographs, 1957-1972, 1989-2001; (8) Fieldwork Tools, undated
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The papers of Richard L. Hay were received partially organized. Most of the collection was packed and sent from Hay's home in Tucson after his death. A small portion of Hay's Olduvai photos, reprints of his publications, and X-ray diffraction data were sent to the archives later by his colleague Marie Jackson. The processing archivist kept existing groupings and arrangement and organized the collection into eight series. Original folder titles were retained with titles assigned by the archivist placed within square brackets. Oversized materials were separated and replaced with notes indicating original and new locations.

Processed by Lorain Wang, July 2009

Encoded by Jocelyn Baltz, July 2012
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection comprises the professional papers of Richard LeRoy Hay. Among his papers are his correspondence with Mary D. and Louis S. B. Leakey and his research at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli, consisting of his field notebooks, maps, photographs, data, and documentation of geological specimens he collected. Also in the collection is his research at other sites in East Africa, including Kerimasi and Oldoinyo Lengai in Tanzania and Rusinga Island in Kenya. To a lesser extent (although still a significant amount) in the collection is the documentation of Hay's research in the United States. Present are field notebooks and photographs from his research in Amargosa, Nevada which served as a geologic analog for Olduvai. Also in the collection are field notebooks spanning from 1958 to 2004 containing his notes on his research in Oregon, Hawaii, Wyoming, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Wisconsin, and other regions in the country. Mixed in are notes from his research in other countries including Pakistan, Scotland, and France. The collection includes his field notebooks from his service in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, during which he spent some time in Japan. There are no notes from his work as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Hay's collections of thin sections and geological specimens from Olduvai Gorge, Laetoli, Oldoinyo Lengai, and Kerimasi volcano are held by the Smithsonian Insitution's Human Origins Program.

For other materials at the National Anthropological Archives relating to Olduvai and Laetoli, please see the Louise Marie Robbins papers.