Robert Matheson Norris, emeritus professor of geology at UC Santa Barbara and supporter of the Natural Reserve System, died August 31, 2012. He was 91.
A veteran of World War II who saw action in the Pacific, Dr. Norris went on to help found UC Santa Barbara’s geology department. He coauthored The Geology of California textbook (John Wiley & Sons, 1976) with R.W. Webb , and took generations of students on field geology courses around the state.
Dr. Norris’s field courses often included at stop at Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center. There, he and his brother Kenneth S. Norris, a founder of the NRS, constructed a cabin nestled within the mountain’s boulders.
Robert Norris was a staunch advocate of the NRS, and was chair of the Santa Barbara campus NRS committee for many years. An interpretive trail at Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center was named in his honor in 2003.
Gifts to the Granite Mountains Desert Research Center would be appreciated in lieu of flowers.
“Dr. Robert Matheson Norris, 1921-2012, Santa Barbara,” Santa Barbara Independent