I am another mineralogist who welcomed his vast knowledge and level headed use of it.  Catherine Skinner

The younger generation may be interested to learn that the late Ernie Nickel was a Canadian export to Australia. Born in Ontario, he was a graduate of McMaster University, in Hamilton. Ernie's mineralogical career developed between 1953 and 1971 at what was first known as the Mines Branch in the federal Department of Energy Mines and Resources. He rapidly gained recognition as one of Canada's leading mineralogists and developed and headed a mineralogical team at what had by then become known as the Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET), now a branch in the re-named Natural Resources Canada. Among the many mineralogical contributions that can be attributed to Ernie was the Sulphide Research Program. This sought to investigate fundamental properties of sulphide minerals and attracted solid state physicists and crystallographers (including Australian Syd Hall).

Ernie was a friend, colleague and mentor to many in Canada before being attracted by CSIRO's offer of a non-administrative research position, an offer he could not refuse as at that time he was actively being groomed for a higher administrative position at CANMET and there were rumblings of introducing “cost-recovery” and all that this entailed. Ernie foresaw at least ten years clear sailing in research before this philosophy reached Australia. In typical Ernie style, he prepared himself for the move by learning to use the microprobe, which was usually the realm of our capable technicians. Ernie also had a large impact on the international scene including, for many years, an important rôle in the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names. Ernie continued working on many fronts after his ‘retirement' 15 years ago. Among these activities was his collaboration with Dorian Smith in examining and cataloguing incompletely described, “unnamed” minerals. In fact, a few weeks prior to his death, he had been discussing with Dorian some unnamed minerals in a recent paper that I was involved with­ and that was how I learned the sad news. One of my treasured possessions is his gift to me of his 1991 “Mineral Reference Manual” (with Monte Nichols). In spite of now being quite out of date, it is my most used book because of its handy size in soft-cover, and inclusion of mineral densities.

Louis J. Cabri
Ottawa

 

Following a short battle with cancer, Exploration and Mining Fellow, Ernie Nickel, passed away on Saturday 18 July aged 83.

Ernie was one of those rare souls everybody liked and will be fondly remembered by his friends and colleagues.

Until recently, even though a post-retirement fellow of 24 years, Ernie still went to work every day on his bicycle. His distinguished career in mineralogical research has seen him publish over 100 papers and write two books. He even had a mineral, Ernienickelite, named after him. He boasted one of the highest citation records in CSIRO and was ranked in the ISI Highly Cited list for researchers in geosciences.

Ernie's career accolades include two lifetime memberships of the Mineralogical Association of Canada for the best published papers in the society's journal on two occasions, and a fellowship in the mineralogical Society of America.

After completing his university qualification in mineralogy, he was employed in the Mines Branch of the Canada Centre for Minerals and Energy Technology (Canmet), but a minerals boom in Australia enticed him down under. He came to Australia to escape from the senior administrative role he had risen to in Canmet and wanted to return to science. In 1971, he was offered three positions in Australia – luckily, he chose CSIRO.

Erine took early retirement at the age of 60, but continued to come to work in the same laboratory and office for the next 24 years. His reason for 'retiring' was to allow his salary to be used to employ more young scientists.

In the past few years, Ernie was responsible for managing and cataloguing CSIRO's impressive collection of gold – over 500 specimens of gold nuggets kindly donated by Australian prospector Mark Creasy.

Ernie was also a keen gardener, earned the title of National Master in bridge, spoke fluent German, read French, Italian and Russian, and was a very important mentor to many people in mineralogy.

He will be sorely missed by all those who had the privilege to know him.

As President of the Italian Society of Mineralogy and Petrology, I express the sadness of all our scientific community for the death of Ernie Nickel.

All of us will miss him and will remember his fundamental contribution to mineralogy.

Prof. Simona Quartieri

SIMP President

Full Professor of Mineralogy, Earth Sciences Department, Messina University

and c/o

Earth Sciences Department, Modena and Reggio Emilia University