Cooper, Barry John (1948 - 2023)

Summary

Barry Cooper was one of Australia's most eminent geologists, making significant contributions to palaeontology, the history of geology, and the promotion of heritage stone. In 1975 Cooper was appointed palaeontologist with the Geological Survey of South Australia. Over the next 40 years he worked in a number of government positions, including Chief Project Officer and as a ministerial advisor, and contributed significantly to geological research, of South Australia's mineral industry, and policy development. Cooper was an active and long-standing member of national and international organisations representing geological sciences and history of geology. A Fellow of the Geological Society of Australia, between 1984 and 1986 he was founding Chairman of the Society's Earth Sciences History Group. He served as President of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO) from 2016 to 2020, and as Vice President of the Union's Heritage Stone Subcommission. Other organisations of which he was an active member included the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria and the Royal Society of South Australia.

Details

Chronology

1961

Life event - Joined Hawthorn Juniors branch, Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria

1962 - 1970?

Career position - Co-Editor, Hawthorn Juniors Newssheet (later The junior naturalist)

1966 -

Career position - Member, Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria

1970

Education - BSc (hons), University of Melbourne

1970 - 1972

Career position - Lecturer in geology, University of Melbourne

1971 - 1972

Career position - Member of Council, Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria

1972

Education - MSc, University of Melbourne

1972 - 1973

Career position - Vice-President, Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria

1974

Education - PhD, Ohio State University, Ohio, U.S.A.

1975 - 1978

Career position - Secretary, South Australian Division, Geological Society of Australia

1975 - 1989

Career position - Geologist (later Principal Geologist), Geological Survey of South Australia

1977 - 1978

Career position - Secretary, Royal Society of South Australia

1978 - 1979

Career position - Visiting Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

1984 - 1986

Career position - Founding Chairman, Earth Sciences History Group, Geological Society of Australia

1986 - 1987

Career position - Editor, Earth sciences history

1989 - 1990

Career position - Ministerial Advisor to the Minister of Mines and Energy, South Australia

1990 - 2001

Career position - Chief Project Officer, Mines and Energy South Australia

1993

Education - Graduate Management Qualification, Australian Graduate School of Management

2002 - 2005

Career position - Chief Project Officer, South Australian Research and Development Institute

2005 - 2009

Career position - Special Projects Officer, Geological Survey of South Australia

2008 - 2016

Career position - Secretary General, International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences INHIGEO

2009

Life event - Retired

2014 - 2017

Career position - Adjunct Associate Professor, University of South Australia

2016 - 2020

Career position - President, International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences INHIGEO

2017 - 2023

Career position - Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia

2019

Award - Bruce Webb Medal, South Australian Division, Geological Society of Australia

2021

Award - Tom Vallance Medal, Earth Sciences History Group, Geological Society of Australia

Related entries

Published resources

Book Sections

• Cooper, B, 'Some examples of heritage stones from Australia' in Engineering Geology for Society and Territory, volume 5, Lollino, G. [and others], ed. (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2014), pp. 213-8. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09048-1_41. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'The Technological or Applied Science Museum 1889 - 1963' in Adelaide's Jubilee International Exhibition, 1887 - 1888: the event, the building and the legacy, Garnaut, Christine, Collins, Julie and Jolly, Bridget, eds (Darlinghurst, N.S.W.: Crossing Press, 2016), pp. 318-24. Details
• Cooper, Barry J., 'Geologists and the Burra Copper Boom, South Australia, 1845-1851' in History of Research in Mineral Resources, Ortiz, J.E. et al, ed. (Madrid: Instituto Geológico y Mindero de España, 2011), pp. 193-200. Details
• Corbett, David W.P.; Cooper, B. J.; Mooney, P. M., 'Geology' in Ideas and Endeavours - The Natural Sciences in South Australia, C. R. Twidale; M. J. Tyler and M. Davies, eds (Adelaide: Royal Society of South Australia, 1986). Details

Conference Papers

• Cooper, B. J., 'The Geological Society of Australia', in Useful and Curious Geological Enquiries Beyond the World: Pacific-Asia Historical Themes: The 19th International INHIGEO Symposium, Sydney, Australia, 4-8 July, 1994 edited by D. F. Branagan and G. H. McNally (Sydney: International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences, 1994), pp. 275-285.. Details
• Cooper, Barry J.; and Jago, James B., 'Early Understanding of the Cambrian in South Australia: 1839-1910', in The History of Geology in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century; the Story in Australia, and in Victoria, from Selwyn and McCoy to Gregory - 1853 to 1903 edited by Pierson, R. R. (Melbourne: Earth Sciences History Group, GSA Inc., 2007), pp. 20-5.. Details

Edited Books

• Cooper, B. J.; Branagan, D. F. ed., Rock Me Hard...Rock me Soft: a History of the Geological Society of Australia Incorporated (Sydney: The Geological Society of Australia Incorporated, 1994), 194 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Ananian-cooper, Barry J., 'Jenny Barnett, 25 August 1947-7 February 2009', The Victorian naturalist, 126 (5) (2009), 185-186 . Details
• Ananian-Cooper, Barry J.; Houghton, A. V., 'Christiania (Chriss) McInnes 5 January 1910 - 7 September 2010', The Victorian naturalist, 128 (1) (2011), 22-24. Details
• Anon, 'Tom Vallance Medal 2021 awarded to Barry Cooper', Newsletter, Earth Sciences History Group, 58 (2021), 109. Details
• Anon, 'The Tom Vallance Medal [awarded to Barry Cooper]', TAG, 2021 (March) (2021), 34-5. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Historical Perspective: the Search for Coal in South Australia before 1851', Geological Survey, South Australia, Quarterly Geological Notes, 92 (1984), 2-3. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Historical Perspective: Early Geophysical Investigations in South Australia', Geological Survey, South Australia, Quarterly Geological Notes, 91 (1984), 2-3. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Historical Perspective: Australia's First Geology Book, 1846', Geological Survey, South Australia, Quarterly Geological Notes, 90 (1984), 2. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Historical perspective: the Kyancutta Museum', Geological Survey of South Australia, quarterly notes, 103 (1987), 2-3. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Early Geological Mapping in South Australia', Globe, 27 (1987), 11-33. Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Sedimentary Uranium in South Australia: a History of Early Exploration and Discovery in the Lake Frome Region', Applied Earth Sciences (Transactions of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Series B), 117 (2008), 37-50 . Details
• Cooper, B. J., 'Bragg, Mawson and Brown, and the Early Uranium Discoveries in South Australia', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 133 (2009), 199-218 . Details
• Cooper, B. J.; and Major, R. B., 'David Walter Peel Corbett (25 April 1933 to 17 September 2021)', INHIGEO annual record, 54 (2022), 18-21. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'Reg Sprigg (1919-1994): a legend in his own life time', The Australian Geologist, 94 (1985), 73-4. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'A summary history of geology in South Australia', Journal of the Mineralogical Society of South Australia, 6 (1986), 80-111. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'Historical perspective: the role of Sir Thomas Playford in petroleum exploration (1958 - 1965)', Quarterly Geological Notes of the Geological Survey of South Australia, 121 (1992), 20-3. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'The Geological Society of Australia is fifty years old', Episodes (International Union of Geological Sciences), 25 (3) (2002), 209-12. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'The Historic Use and Trading of Building Stone in South Australia, and Support for the Associated Industry', South Australian Geographical Journal, 110 (2011), 5-29. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'Phillip Elliott Playford (1931 - 2017)', INHIGEO annual record, 50 (2018), 50-1. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/anh.2018.0521. Details
• Cooper, Barry, 'Homer Eugene Le Grand (1944 - 2017)', INHIGEO annual record, 51 (2019), 46-7. Details
• Cooper, Barry and John Parker, 'The geology of South Australia, chapter 1: introduction', Bulletin of the Geological Survey of South Australia, 54 (1994), 1-8. Details
• Cooper, Barry J and Jago, James B., 'History of Cambrian Investigations in South Australia with particular reference to the Biostratigraphy', Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists, 33 (2007), 1-27. Details
• Cooper, Barry J., 'Sedimentary Uranium: how it was first discovered in the Frome Embayment', Abstracts (Geological Society of Australia), 87 (2007), 5-6. Details
• Cooper, Barry J., '"Snowball Earth": the Early Contribution from South Australia', Earth Sciences History, 29 (2010), 121-45. Details
• Cooper, Barry J. and Jago, James B., 'Robert Bedford (1874 1951), the Kyancutta museum, and a unique contribution to international geology', Earth sciences history, 37 (2) (2018), 416-43. https://doi.org/10.17704/1944-6178-37.2.416. Details
• Cooper, Barry J.; and Jago, James B, 'The Emu Bay Shale: a History of Investigations', Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 58 (2011), 235-41. Details
• Cooper, Barry J.; and Jago, James B., 'Mawson's Earliest (1906) Report on the Geology of the Flinders Ranges', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 131 (2007), 167-74. Details
• Jago, J. B.; and Cooper, B. J., 'Armin Öpik's first links with Australia?', The Australian geologist, 188 (2018), 41. Details
• Presland, Gary, 'Barry John Cooper PhD FAIG FGSAust 23 September 1948 - 13 October 2023', Victorian naturalist, 140 (6) (2023), 179-80. Details

Reviews

• Johns, R. Keith, A Mirage in the Desert? The Discovery, Evaluation and Development of the Olympic Dam Ore Body at Roxby Downs, South Australia, 1975-88 (2010)
  Cooper, Barry, Journal of Australasian Mining History, 8, (2010), 188-90. Details
• Glover, John with Bevan, Jenny, The Forgotten Explorers: Pioneer geologists of Western Australia, 1826-1926 (2010)
  Cooper, Barry J., 'Pioneering geology in remote Western Australia', INHIGEO Newsletter, 43, (2011), 74-6. Details