Allan Wie Hwa Bé (1931 – October 13, 1983) was a

micropaleontologist Micropaleontology (American spelling; spelled micropalaeontology in European usage) is the branch of paleontology ( palaeontology) that studies microfossils, or fossils that require the use of a microscope to see the organism, its morphology and i ...

. He was considered a pioneer in research about planktonic foraminiferal ecology. He also served as president of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research.

Personal life

Bé enjoyed

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

. He died suddenly October 13, 1983.

Career

Bé worked primarily out of the

Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory The Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) is the scientific research center of the Columbia Climate School, and a unit of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. It focuses on climate and earth sciences and is located on a 189-acre (64 h ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he was also a graduate student. In the mid 20th-century he researched the distribution of planktonic foraminifera species in the environment based on the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

s, and developed

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

work about the species. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked with O. Roger Anderson, exploring how environmental changes affect individual planktonic foraminifera. He published an average of five papers per year, to a total of approximately 100. He served as president of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research.

Bibliography

*Bé, Allan W. H. ''Biology of planktonic foraminifera.'' Berkeley: University of California (1982). *Bé, Allan W. H. and Andrew McIntyre. ''Paleoecology of Coccolithophorids and Planktonic Foraminifera in Deep-sea Sediments: An Electron-microscopic Study''. New York: Columbia University in the City of New York, Lamont Geological Observatory (1965).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Be, Allan 1921 births 1983 deaths Micropaleontologists American paleontologists Columbia University alumni Columbia University faculty