THE WORK and career of internationally acclaimed Aberystwyth geologist Robin Whatley was celebrated at the University of California Santa Barbara this week.

Prof Whatley, who taught at Aberystwyth University for over three decades, died in June last year, aged 79.

Prof Whatley, one of only a handful of British scientists to be elected to the Argentine Academy of Sciences, discovered and named over 500 new species of a microscopic crustacean known as an ‘ostracod’ during his distinguished career.

His life and work, which was commemorated in a Geological Society memorial meeting at Burlington House, London in January, is to be further remembered at an International Meeting in California from 27 to 31 August.

Prof Whatley’s wife, Dr Caroline Maybury, said it would be a “fitting tribute”.

Prof Whatley was born in Kent in 1936 and was educated at the Sir Norton Knatchbull Grammar School.

Prof Whatley was appointed assistant lecturer in Geology at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1966.

From 1971 to 1973 Robin was appointed visiting professor at the Museum of La Plata, Argentina.

Further work in Patagonia at the PROGEBA Institute in San Carlos de Bariloche was undertaken in 1991 and 1994.

He was made a member of the Argentine Academy of Sciences, broadly equivalent to the British Royal Society, in 1998.

During his long career in Aberystwyth, Robin taught a wide range of subjects.

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