Paul Douglas Komar

Paul Douglas Komar

December 2, 1939 – February 22, 2023

Paul Douglas Komar was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on December 2, 1939, to parents Caroline and Arnold Komar. Growing up in Michigan, Paul did not see the ocean for the first time until he was 12 years old. However, he was always interested in sciences, which for him involved collecting organisms from ponds and streams near his home. Paul also collected a variety of stones found in gravel pits, which he had been told were carried there from Canada by the glaciers. Paul had a fair-size collection of both organisms and stones, and learned enough from library books to know what he was collecting. The only connection with coasts during those early years were frequent summer family visits to beaches on Lake Michigan. At a young age he came to recognize that the sand on the beach had also come from Canada, carried by the glaciers, and that all the different colored grains were from the varieties of rocks he had been collecting.

After an undergraduate degree and then earning an initial master's degree at the University of Michigan in Mathematics, those early childhood impressions returned when he developed a thesis project in geology. This was for his second master's degree at the University of Michigan. When it came time to choose a thesis topic, Paul remembered his childhood experiences on Lake Michigan beaches, specifically those about the compositions and grain sizes of the beach sands. The resulting title of his thesis was: "An Evaluation of Methods of Differentiating Beach and Dune Sands by Application to Lake Michigan Environments". One of the methods applied was the sorting of the heavy minerals within the sands, selectively blowing the quartz and feldspars into the dunes. This process left behind concentrations of black-sand deposits on the beaches, an interest that remained with him over the years. Paul eventual performed significant research concerning the physics of mineral sorting on beaches in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and also along the Nile Delta in Egypt contrasting its eroding and accreting shores.

In 1965 Paul began pursuing his PhD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography with Doug Inman. Paul worked on an investigation to measure longshore sand transport rates using fluorescent tracers. The sand-tracer experiments were very demanding, with extensive field work to inject and then collect samples of the dispersed tracers, followed by months of counting the grains in each of the samples. The fieldwork was exciting in that most of it was undertaken on a coarse sand beach in Baja California, on the shore of the Gulf of California. By the end of that study, however, he never wanted to look at another tracer grain. Particularly memorable for Paul during this time was a visit to Scripps by Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold. Paul was familiar with Bagnold's 1930s research on wind-blown sand transport and desert landforms and had read his 1935 book "Libyan Sands" about his exploration of the desert in western Egypt and Libya, using Model-T cars converted for desert travel. This visit by Bagnold to Scripps was Paul's introduction to a long association with him. Years later Paul visited Bagnold at his home in England, and still later Paul retyped and edited his autobiography "Sand, Wind & War", having been provided with a single-spaced copy Bagnold had typed when he was in his 90s and nearly blind. Paul was awestruck by this opportunity to interact on a personal basis with Bagnold, an explorer, a Brigadier General who led a commando group against Rommel in North Africa during World War II, and a renowned scientist.

After his PhD, Paul was awarded a NATO post-doctoral fellowship to undertake research at Saint Andrews University in Scotland and also spent time at HRS Wallingford. In 1970, Paul and his wife Jan returned to the United States where Paul joined the faculty in Oceanography at Oregon State University. Immediately Paul embarked on a series of studies focused on the Oregon coast, including researching the erosion of Bayocean Spit caused by jetty construction and the significant erosion occurring in the new development of expensive homes on Siletz Spit.

Paul's storied career covered a myriad of topics ranging from investigations into the impact of climate change on coastal hazards to sediment transport by floods on Mars. In the nearshore processes community Paul is probably best known for his pioneering work on longshore sediment transport and then for his highly influential textbook, "Beach Processes and Sedimentation". Thousands of students around the world first learned the fundamentals of waves and beaches from Paul and his unparalleled text. Many of Paul's colleagues in the coastal community have absolutely wonderful memories and have always thought of Paul as a modern-day Renaissance man. His passion for coastal geomorphology and drive for answers was truly inspirational and certainly influenced the career path of many budding scientists. Several of Paul's former students have gone on to successful careers of their own, having been inspired by Paul's example. He was interested in, and knowledgeable about, so many topics, from nearshore processes and sediment transport to architecture, music, and history. Paul's depth of knowledge of nearshore processes, his wit, sense of humor, and storytelling were unique and a field trip to the Oregon coast with Paul was a true treat.

While Paul was a student at the University of Michigan, he met Janet Wilkinson at a football game at the Big House. They were dating other people, Paul's date being Janet's roommate. The next time that he went to their apartment he asked to see Janet! They got married on August 11, 1962. Their daughter, Kristin Beth Komar was born when Paul was at graduate school at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He grew up with two older brothers, Arnold Jr. (Doris) (12 years older) and Kenneth (9 years older), and a sister Kathleen (11 years younger). He was grateful to his brother, Arnie, for giving him a love of classical music. Paul was a treasured mentor, colleague, and friend and he will be greatly missed.

Paul was preceded in death by his parents and all three of his siblings. He is survived by his wife of over 60 years, Janet, daughter Kristi, his sister-in-law, Doris, nephews, nieces, and other extended family.