In memoriam and dedication: Richard John Payne (1978-2019)

Richard on fieldwork in the Falklands Islands in March 2018. Photo credit: Graham Rush (York). With the death of Dr Richard J. Payne in May 2019, Quaternary science has lost not only an influential researcher and peatland scientist and tephrochronologist, but also one of its most welcoming and enthusiastic members, and his collaborators and friends across the world lost a valued ally. At the time of the climbing accident, Richard was a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography at the University of York, where he was an outstanding colleague and inspirational mentor. For years, whenever one of the authors (MJB) met another palaeoecologist from the Yorkshire area, the conversation would inevitably include “we should get together more often”, and vague plans would be made for an informal meet-up, but like many academic good ideas, the intention would get lost amidst the busyness of the job. Then Richard Payne arrived at York, and the conversations became a reality. Richard's enthusiasm, energy and generous friendship created the Yorkshire Palaeo Group and has already caused multiple afternoons of science-then-the-pub-for-more-science to happen, attracting attendees from across the north of England. Formal and informal tributes to Richard all mention his enjoyment of collaboration and innate skill in bringing people together and making things happen, as well as the excellence of his science and his genuine passion for understanding and protecting the natural world. Richard's first degree was in Environmental Science from Southampton University, and he followed this with an MRes. in the Science of the Environment at Lancaster before moving to Queen Mary, University of London in 2002 to undertake a PhD on the impacts of volcanism on distal peatlands under the supervision of one of the authors (JJB). The chosen area of study was Alaska, and Richard took on the many challenges of the project with characteristic resolution and determination. Sampling frozen bogs, proximal bears, vandal moose and especially mosquitos did not daunt him in the field, and if during lab work he needed to count 20 slides to get enough testate amoebae for statistical accuracy, then 20 slides would be counted. No transfer function, or even a published taxonomy, for testate amoebae existed in the study area, so Richard produced one. Microtephra/cryptotephra records were very rare in Alaska at this time, despite the proximity of active volcanic zones, so Richard produced these records for his study sites, as well as the planned work on the major and visible tephra horizons. Most unusually, his PhD was passed with no corrections. Between 2005 and 2014, Richard successfully secured a series of fellowships and other research funding to pursue a wide range of research interests. Never one to be put off by difficult locations or challenging field work, he worked on wetlands in the Middle East through a fellowship at the British School at Athens, then at the University of Manchester, where he also secured funding to spend time at the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem, the British Institute in Amman and the British Institute at Ankara, where he also began to more formally link palaeoecological insights with contemporary conservation concerns. He then moved to Manchester Metropolitan University where he played a key role in the FP6-funded project PEATBOG (Pollution, Precipitation and Temperature Impacts on Peatland Biodiversity and Biogeochemistry). This led to working with contemporary bog ecology specialists and pollution impact specialists (especially Nancy Dise and Simon Caporn), and a further acceleration of his partnerships, publication and breadth of scope, including papers on plant ecology and responses to pollution. He then moved to the University of Stirling as an “Impact Fellow”, before finally securing a permanent academic post at the University of York in the Environment Department. Moving to York and a permanent role allowed him to apply for larger project grants as project lead, and he rapidly developed a portfolio of projects and researchers, developing the geographic range of his collaborations further with work in regions such as Russia, China, and the Falklands, and researching a wide range of peatland and climate change related topics. At York, he also began to teach undergraduates; his presentations, in the classroom or at conferences, were always energetic and his enthusiasm was contagious and much appreciated by his classes. Richard died pursuing another great passion of his, mountaineering, in an accident in India while attempting to climb Peak 6477, a previously unclimbed subsidiary peak of one of India's highest mountains, Nanda Devi—it is sadly appropriate that he was pushing boundaries and exploring the natural world to the end. Richard's research interests, driven by both a natural curiosity and a never-ending stream of ideas, were very broad. He never lost sight of the importance of methods in Quaternary science, making contributions to the development of the testate amoeban proxy through taxonomy and careful and rigorous testing and development of methodologies, but also collaborated beyond traditional field boundaries, working with modern ecologists and peatland scientists to understand recent and future trajectories of peatlands. Through his growing group and network of collaborators across the globe, he contributed to both careful studies of individual sites and to synthesis studies pulling out wider patterns and interpretations of ecosystem process across regions and continents. His work is characterised by connections between past and present processes and impacts, and by statistical rigour, and he held firm against co-authors who preferred to draw more exciting (but less well founded) conclusions to produce a major body of work. The sheer breadth of Richard's passions and enthusiasm, and his ability to not just have ideas but convince others, secure funding, and generate publications, have already made him a leader in his fields, but his kindness, generosity of spirit, and ability to turn collaborators into friends and mentees into inspired scientists is probably his greatest legacy. His passing is a huge loss to the scientific community, not just to world knowledge. Students, colleagues, collaborators and friends will miss him tremendously. He packed an amazing amount into the short time he had as a practising scientist, and his legacy both through his extensive publications and through his influence on those around him, his colleagues, collaborators and research students, is going to be long-lasting. The field has lost a great researcher, but also a generous and inclusive community-creator and friend. Richard was an all-round environmental scientist, but tephrochronology was one of his passions. He used tephras extensively in his PhD studies in Alaska (2002–2006) under the supervision of JJB at Queen Mary, University of London (Payne and Blackford, 2004, 2008; Payne et al., 2008), and applied his tephra expertise to novel experimental studies in Britain, while still completing his PhD thesis (Payne and Blackford, 2005; Payne et al. 2005). His interest in tephra taphonomy led him to contact one of us (MJG), a colleague PhD student at the University of Plymouth, who worked on New Zealand cryptotephras. MJG has fond memories of their work together (Payne and Gehrels, 2010). MJG had an experimental setup in the Plymouth lab which involved using a rainfall simulator to observe the changes of tephra layers of different thicknesses on peat surfaces. It was a small experimental study which would likely not have been published had it not been Richard's suggestion to combine it with his own field study and his persistence in keeping the writing and collaboration going. Later, as his colleague in York, it was a privilege to support his research and his students in the laboratory. Richard also used his tephra expertise in other, less-explored parts of the world, for example in Kamchatka (Payne and Symeonakis, 2012). A characteristic feature of Richard's tephra work was his ability to combine tephras with his other interests to address important questions on volcanic impacts. For example, he published a study on the impact of tephra on testate amoebae communities (Payne, 2012) and used the pollen and tephra record to assess the impacts of volcanic eruptions on the vegetation history of the British Isles (Payne et al., 2013). While at York, Richard inspired many students by offering dissertation projects that involved tephra analyses. His lectures on volcanic hazards were complemented by laboratory practicals on characterising tephras and a self-guided computer exercise modelling volcanic ash plumes. At the time of his death, Richard held two Leverhulme grants in which tephra work featured prominently: “Quantifying carbon accumulation and loss in afforested peatlands” (with Roxane Andersen, Russell Anderson, Dmitri Mauquoy and PhD student Tom Sloan) and “Peatlands and climate change: linking the past with the future” (with Simon Caporn, Nancy Dise, James Rowson, PhD student Luke Andrews and postdoc MJG). Both projects are highly innovative in that they investigate the response of peatlands to climate change by using one of Richard's trademark approaches, the linking of palaeoecological and experimental approaches. At York the work on both projects continues. MJG, who was Richard's first and only postdoc, is carrying out the tephrochronological analyses of Cors Fochno bog in Wales. Luke and Tom are using tephras in their studies to quantify carbon stocks in UK peatlands. Their work will be published soon and will be examples of Richard's continuing legacy in tephra studies. Just before Richard embarked on his journey to India, he was asked to referee one of the papers in this volume. Typically, although on leave, Richard undertook the review and his report was exemplary: clear, detailed, necessarily critical yet fair, and with helpful suggestions for improving the paper. Note: This special issue of JQS on tephra studies is dedicated to the memory of Dr Richard Payne. Part of this obituary was published in the Quaternary Research Association's newsletter QN in October 2019 (Bunting and Blackford, 2019), and we thank the newsletter's editor, Dr A. Stone, for allowing material to be re-used here.