Meyer Rubin

Meyer Rubin (February 17, 1924 – May 2, 2020) was an American geologist known for his radiocarbon dating work with the United States Geological Survey.

After graduating from Englewood High School, South Side, Chicago, in 1941, he attended the Woodrow Wilson Junior College, Chicago (now the Kennedy–King College).

In the spring of 1943, Rubin enlisted into a University of Chicago run pre-meteorology training program (class "B") for the United States Army Air Forces (AAF); active duty effective March 3, 1943.

Basic training was at Fort Sheridan with classes held at the University of Michigan.

Rubin finished his training in September 1943, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

He was shipped off first to Port Moresby, New Guinea, and then later to the Philippines, to help forecast weather for AAF long range flights in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

After Japan surrendered, Rubin was sent to Tokyo as part of the post war occupation.

Rubin returned to the States in 1946 and attended, on the G.I. Bill, the University of Chicago, from which he earned his bachelor’s and master's degree, and later his Ph.D. in Geology (Prof. Leland Horberg, advisor).

Rubin joined the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.C., on June 14, 1950, as a member of the Branch of Military Geology, then led by Frank C. Whitmore, Jr.

In 1952, Hans E. Suess was hired by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to set up a radiocarbon dating laboratory in Washington, D.C. and built the radiocarbon apparatus in a basement space in the GSA Building (former Department of the Interior Building) located at 1800 F St., NW.

A basement space was needed due to the extreme mass of the two steel and lead shielded counter assemblies.

In early 1953, Corrine Alexander joined the radiocarbon project, followed by Rubin in December of the same year.

Routine radiocarbon measurements were begun in the summer of 1953.

Rubin became director of the USGS Radiocarbon Laboratory in 1955 when Suess left to set up a new laboratory at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA.

The next few years at the USGS were devoted to perfecting the acetylene technique and applying it to a multitude of geological and archaeological research.

In April 1955, Rubin and Suess published the second set of results from the lab's first year of operation.

One of their main focuses was on establishing an absolute time scale for the Wisconsin glaciation substages prior to what was known as the Mankato substage (the most recent glacial advance, around 9,000-11,000 years ago).

Suess's acetylene method for carbon counting extended the dating range back to approximately 45,000 years, making it possible to fix in time pre-Mankato glacial events by dating wood and other organic material from older glacial deposits.

Richard Foster Flint assembled a collection of samples that were dated at the lab.

Some of the samples were collected by Rubin in collaboration with other geologists such as J Harlen Bretz (who was Rubin's Geomorphology professor at UChicago), Carl Leland Horberg, William John Wayne, Richard Parker Goldthwait, James Zumberge, and Donald Eschman.

Samples were collected by other collectors as well.

Flint and Rubin published a brief assessment of the stratigraphic meaning of these samples and their age determinations in May 1955.

One of the conclusions was that a major glaciation began 25,000 or more years ago and reached a maximum about 20,000 years ago.

The results were consistent.

Rubin continued his research on the Wisconsin glacial stage and used the results for his doctoral dissertation, earning his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956.

Willard Libby, inventor of the dating method and 1960 Nobel Prize winner used a solid carbon method for sample determination, whereas Suess, upon seeing Libby's method in Chicago knew that he would try the gas, acetylene C2H2, as he had success with acetylene in the 1930s in Germany for other radiochemical determinations.

This was a significant step as it allowed more efficient counting and easy movement of the counting material between the extraction apparatus, gas purification line and the two counters.

Rubin initially assisted in the acetylene preparation, and as a geologist provided valuable input on the selection of samples and interpretation of results.

In the first two years, the laboratory produced approximately 200 age determinations, which were critically important to unravel the various details of the most recent Pleistocene glaciation, the Wisconsin stage, among other geological problems.

In 1963, Rubin questioned the validity of dates from sea snail shells.

Experiments showed that snails could uptake 10-12 percent inorganic carbonate from limestone, yielding an uncertainty in the dates of approximately one thousand years.

In 1964, Rubin and A. A. Rosen, of the U.S. Public Health Service, showed that by measuring content of surface water it is possible to determine the relative contributions of industrial pollution (from fossil fuels) and domestic pollution (from domestic sewage and garbage) in streams—desirable information for planning abatement measures.

An activated carbon filter system was used to collect samples of organic contaminants in water, which were then extracted using chloroform and ethanol, and converted to acetylene for measurement, making use of a double-tube combustion system developed to completely burn the highly flammable samples in a controlled manner.

Fossil carbon such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal is depleted in compared to the contemporary carbon in animal and plant matter.

Their data was reported as a proportion of contemporary carbon to fossil carbon, and the results where consistent with the known pollution sources at the chosen sample sites, and provided new information at sites where this proportion could not be predicted by other means.

In 1973, Rubin and the laboratory moved into a newly built USGS national headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

Rubin kept a room full of samples in the lab as part of the "tour," which included samples he said were wood relics from King Solomon's mines and the Queen of Sheba's palace, linen wraps from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a large piece of whale baleen.

He also kept a guest book he would ask visitors to sign.

This work was expanded upon in 1975 by Spiker and Rubin, when they published a water pollution study describing the measurement of activity of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in surface water and groundwater, this time applying high-intensity ultraviolet radiation to large water samples to convert DOC to via photo-oxidation, for measurement.

This was one of the early investigations of groundwater DOC impacted by industrial and municipal pollution.