Book on Mid Atlantic mystery to be marine expert’s legacy
Colleagues organise launch for work completed day before death
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When the onset of pancreatic cancer in 2002 dashed marine biologist Peter Boyle’s hopes of joining the biggest survey yet of the North Atlantic Ocean, a lesser man might have bowed out of the project altogether.
Instead the Aberdeen University scientist resolved to do his bit for the expedition onshore, by interviewing the international researchers who did take part and compiling their discoveries in a book that would open up the mysteries of this fascinating underwater world to a wider audience.
The book, documenting the marine life of the Mid Atlantic Ridge stretching from Iceland to the Azores, was to become Professor Boyle’s last legacy to marine science.
He completed it the day before his death in April this year.
Now two friends and former colleagues who were inspired by Prof Boyle to join the survey are bringing his work to fruition.
Professor Monty Priede and Dr Nikki King are organising a launch for the book, Life in the Mid Atlantic, at the university next week.
Prof Priede said it had been a privilege to be able to do one last favour for a great friend and colleague who gave almost 40 years to the university.
“It was thanks to Peter I got involved with the project,” he said. “But when we went for our medicals before we could go to sea for the first part of the voyage, he failed because he had cancer.
“Being prevented from joining the expedition was a matter of great personal frustration to him. Yet he continued to support it by attending meetings and contributing to outreach activities.”
These included writing text for an exhibition, titled Deeper than Light, which toured major museums around the world including Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum.
He was also on the steering committee for what is known as the MAR-ECO (Mid Atlantic Ridge Ecology) project – one of a number of schemes connected to the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year programme which aims to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.
Prof Priede, director of the university’s Oceanlab centre at Newburgh, said Prof Boyle’s expertise had earned him renown around the world – particularly his work on octopuses and squid.
“Fishermen up and down the coast who caught octopuses would give them to Peter, who used to have a colony of them at the university’s zoology building,” he said.
“Knowledge of these animals led Peter to become engaged in advancing the legal protection of octopuses under the Cruelty to Animals Act because he found they have the same intelligence as the pets people keep at home.”
Prof Boyle, who was born in Surrey and lived at Chapel of Garioch in Aberdeenshire, was 66 when he died just weeks before the birth of his fifth grandchild.
He is survived by his wife Ann, three children Alice, David and Catriona, and grandchildren.
Among the tributes paid after his death, Professor Paul Rodhouse, of the British Antarctic Survey, described him as “a warm and generous spirit who was also rigorous in dealing with scientific business”.
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