Memorials

Abstract

Elwin Merrill Peacock was born 5 February 1928, in Dallas, Texas, to Helen Wainscott Peacock and Henry Bates Peacock. He died peacefully in his sleep on 10 December 2016. Gerry grew up on a farm in lower Michigan and developed a work ethic typical of families that had just come through the Great Depression. As a teenager, he operated a ham radio and developed an interest in other electronics. He enrolled in engineering at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology. He took surveying and worked with the state highway department in the summer, then switched his major to geophysical engineering and the next summer, he worked for the department's geophysical division on resistivity and seismic surveys. Gerry worked under his mentor, Lloyal Bacon, and began programing and processing gravity data. Gerry graduated in 1960, entered graduate school, but soon took a job as a geophysicist with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey where he worked under Leroy Aldridge on the earth's magnetic field and the dynamo effects of the earth's core. This led to more programing and a couple of his first publications.