Dr. Bruce CAMERON

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Bruce CAMERON Obituary

CAMERON, Dr. Bruce Passed away at home in Gold River on Thursday, February 28, 2013 with family by his side. Predeceased by a sister, Elizabeth and wife Suzie; Bruce leaves to mourn his passing his loving and adoring wife, Helen; brother Bob children, Dave, Allison, Ian (Karen), Ross (Jess), Jenn (Rod), Michael, Jenn (Leif) and Rachel (Reg); Grandchildren, Tyson, Ashley, Cassidy, Melanie, William, Ruth and Olivia; nieces and nephews as well as extended family Marion. "... 50 million years ago when I was a boy..." Bruce was born in Edmonton, AB at the University Hospital while his Dad was in Medical School. His schooling took place in Drumheller, Calgary, and Lethbridge and he received both his BSc and Masters degrees in Geology from the University of Alberta. Bruce then continued his studies by attending Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. for his PhD. in micropaleontology. He worked in the oil industry in Calgary till 1969 when he moved his family to Vancouver, B.C. where he was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada. Later he moved to Vancouver Island settling in Sooke where he and Suzie built a house on land overlooking Sooke basin. While living in Sooke he worked for the Pacific Geoscience Centre and taught part time at UBC. Through out his life he walked millions of miles exploring and discovering out of the way places collecting fossils. During his retirement Bruce and Helen moved to Gold River "his old stomping ground", where they continued gardening and he grew dahlias the size of dinner plates and geraniums from seed. Dr. Bruce Cameron is the discoverer of the gem type mineral of the Yukon Territories, Lazulite which is named after him. An Open house Remembrance for Bruce will be held 11:00am - 4:00pm on Sunday, March 17, 2013 at the Gerry Morgan Memorial Centre Lounge (the arena) in Gold River. Condolences may be offered to the family at www.suttonsfuneralhome.com "> www.suttonsfuneralhome.com . In lieu of flowers, donations in Bruce's memory may be sent to Gold River Health Centre Auxiliary, Gold River Health Care Auxiliary, C/O President Jan Trueman, PO Box 395, Gold River, BC., V0P 1G0.

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Published by Victoria Times-Colonist on Mar. 9, 2013.

Memories and Condolences
for Bruce CAMERON

3 Entries

Barry Price

May 22, 2013

Very dory to hear that Bruce passed away. While working with Chevron (Cal Standard) in Calgary 1965-68 I met Bruce and shared a beer with him several times with Potter Chamney and Doug Herron. I always enjoyed his good company.

Allison Cameron

March 26, 2013

May your spirit rest in peace Dad. oxo, Allison

Bruce, 1996, Victoria Palaeontology Fossil Fair, Victoria

Marji & Bob Johns

March 9, 2013

Bruce (B.E.B.) Cameron
West Coast paleontologist Bruce Cameron passed away on February 28th, 2013 in Gold River, British Columbia. After many years living at his hilltop home and farm with great vistas of the Sooke waterfronts, Bruce and his family moved to Gold River to retire. Bruce said he wanted to return to enjoy one of his favorite coasts, the Nootka Sound area.
Bruce's career with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) started in Vancouver in about 1969 after he left Amoco for the west coast. His graduate studies at the University of Alberta and at Stanford University gave him broad geological and paleontological experience that sometimes led to work outside his expertise as a foraminifer specialist. Bruce was the first to find conodonts in the BC Cordillera, an important group of microfossils heavily used by industry for stratigraphic and thermal history research. His finds led to the GSC hiring other paleontologists to work on Cordilleran fossils at the Vancouver office.
During the 1970's Bruce undertook detailed paleontological studies along the west coast of Vancouver Island, especially from Sooke to the Brooks Peninsula and in the offshore studying Shell Canada well material. One of Bruce's most notable research projects involved collection and study of thousands of coastal samples from the Carmanah Group rocks in the Nootka Sound area. His research results “Biostratigraphy and depositional environment of the Escalante and Hesquiat formations (early Tertiary) of the Nootka Sound area, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Paper 78-9, 1980” correctly presented disturbed and distal submarine fan facies primarily of an ancient slope environment in contrast to others who thought the environment was primarily a near shore facies. Bruce was an excellent stratigrapher and paleontologist. He knew geology and sedimentology, and multiple fossil groups (foraminifers, ostracods, radiolarians, mollusks, crustaceans, vertebrates, etc.). He used many aspects of geoscience to support his conclusions. Bruce also collaborated with Jan Muller and K.E. Northcote to publish an important paper in 1981 on “Geology and mineral deposits of Nootka Sound map-area, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Paper 80-16”.
In about 1977, Bruce and his wife Suzie moved to Vancouver Island to do marine geoscience work at the Pacific Geoscience Centre (PGC), co-located with the Institute of Ocean Sciences, at Patricia Bay near Sidney. At PGC, Bruce and Suzie designed and set up the new paleontology labs. Work initially involved offshore geoscience and coring on the continental shelf, slope, and at the deep sea vents. Collaborations with graduate students resulted in their completions of microfossil studies from the offshore Tofino Basin and Queen Charlotte Basin cores. Suzie left the PGC when their daughter, Jenny was born and shortly after I joined the GSC to work with Bruce during the 1980s through to his retirement in about 1989.
Bruce's last large GSC research project involving work throughout much of the 1980s. It entailed detailed Mesozoic biostratigraphic studies in Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) with other colleagues of the GSC and graduate students. Again multiple sections were described and thousands of samples were collected and processed to recover microfossil specimens. This work resulted in the joint, notable, and still referenced work “Cameron, B.E.B. and Tipper, H.W. 1985. Jurassic stratigraphy of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 365”.
Bruce truly understood the importance of multidisciplinary work in a time that could have emphasized focussed and single-discipline frontier science activities. From reading his publications, I also saw his breadth of expertise where he combined his paleontological, sedimentological, lithological, and structural knowledge. In many respects, Bruce's apparent caution and delays for publishing were more related to assuring that the facts were compiled properly and the science was presented accurately. This was hard to do at a time when there was a push for rapid science results and rewards and recognitions for being the first to publish.
Most of all, I admire Bruce for his good ideas, being supportive, encouraging others to start new science, and inspiring many of us to find and discover the excitements of paleontology and geoscience.
Stories about Bruce…..
Bruce loved his coffee all day long. Coffee grounds were my pet peeve in the lab until he offered me a rock can full of recycled grounds. We had just built our house and were landscaping. I put the whole can or grounds under the root ball of a young Japanese maple – the glorious centre piece of our front entrance-way. The maple still flourishes today and gives us a radiance of colour every fall right around Bruce's birthday time. I know now that coffee grounds are one of Bruce's secrets to successful gardening!
Bruce always liked to pull a good joke. When I started to be interested in studying microscopic fish teeth, Bruce presented me one day with what he claimed to be the biggest one he ever found. Coincidentally, one of his puppies had just lost a baby tooth. Almost fooled me!
My husband Bob and I visited Bruce and Suzie's home on their Sooke hills mountain top in the mid 1980s. His farm brought him much joy. We were amazed by his garden and fascinated by the several goats they had. They were fun characters, just like Bruce. We will always remember him fondly.
Marji and Bob Johns

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