Re: paleonet Capt. Ben Ammons

[Judith Harris <harrisj@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Andy for the news and Ammons' story.

Judith

  judith harris
emerita professor
university of colorado museum
boulder, co
harrisj@valornet.com
505-756-1813


On Nov 18, 2005, at 1:59 PM, Andy Rindsberg wrote:

> I was saddened to hear from Chris Garvie that Capt. Ben Ammons, the  
> owner of Elba Hydro Power, died about three months ago. Capt.  
> Ammons was a retired airline pilot. In the 1990s, with grit and  
> patience he attempted to put the old Elba Dam back into service as  
> a source of hydropower, but his dream was shattered by a flood that  
> ruined the generating machinery before it could be put into  
> service. The dam would have been able to power about a quarter of  
> the city of Elba, on the Pea River in southeast Alabama.
>
> The Elba Dam site is the largest fresh exposure of the lower Eocene  
> Bashi Marl, a thick shell bed, and thus is one of the most  
> important fossil sites in the eastern Gulf region of the United  
> States. It has been visited by generations of geologists since  
> Daniel W. Langdon, Jr. explored the Pea River in the 1880's. The  
> fossils are among those described in Lyman Toulmin's "Stratigraphic  
> Distribution of Paleocene and Eocene Fossils in the Eastern Gulf  
> Coast Region" (1977, Geological Survey of Alabama, Monograph 13).  
> Capt. Ammons appreciated the scientific value of his property and  
> was unfailingly helpful to visitors who came to collect fossils,  
> including those who arrived unannounced. He even provided a boat on  
> occasion. The paleontologic community owes much to landowners: Ben  
> Ammons was special.
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
> Geological Survey of Alabama
>
>
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