Allen Heyl, who traveled the world studying and speaking about geology, minerals and fault lines, died at a Wheat Ridge hospice Oct. 24. He was 90.
A memorial service at his graveside is planned in June.
For years, Heyl was the U.S. government’s authority on various mineral deposits, said his son, David Heyl of Evergreen.
Allen Heyl spent most of his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey, including 18 years in Washington, where he managed the mineral-resources branch, and more than 20 years in the Denver office.
He traveled to several countries, including the former Soviet Union, to deliver papers.
“He had the unique ability of developing a rapport with anyone,” said his son, whether it was a landowner in the Appalachians, whose land he wanted access to for study, or a “high- level bureaucrat.”
One of his summer jobs while in college was to be part of a team that mapped the interior of Newfoundland. “It had never been mapped, and the team members walked it and camped out” over several summers, said his daughter, Nancy Heyl-Swiontek of Denver.
Among other things, the senior Heyl studied the earthquake fault lines in the Mississippi Valley, where there had been a devastating earthquake 200 years earlier. Heyl persuaded the U.S. to open an earthquake center in the Midwest.
“Father was a really passionate and intense scientist,” said his son, and had a “superb memory.”
He loved being outdoors, his daughter said, “and avoided managerial positions because he didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk.”
Heyl taught his children to watch the stars and collect rocks, leaves and insects. He also brought home turtles and lizards for his daughter, who “loved them,” she said.
He was a voracious reader of scientific books and journals, but for relaxation he read Westerns by Zane Grey and Agatha Christie mysteries, his daughter said.
Heyl was “an ardent birder,” loved steam engines and took trains whenever possible. He also liked to photograph, saved rare wildflowers and enjoyed visiting the jazz clubs of Harlem and transplanting various plants and trees to test their survivability in different areas.
John V. Heyl Jr. was born April 10, 1918, in Allentown, Pa., and earned his geology degree at Pennsylvania State University and his doctorate in mineralogy at Princeton University.
He married Maxine “Mickey” Lavon Hawke, whom he had met while studying lead and zinc deposits in Wisconsin. They married July 12, 1945. She died in 1993.
In addition to his children, he is survived by six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and his brother, John K. Heyl of East Boothbay, Maine.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other Deaths
Li Ximing, 82, Beijing’s Communist Party boss during the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests, died Saturday in Beijing, Chinese state media reported Tuesday. Li had been a leading member of the group of conservative veteran cadres who supported the military assault on the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed.
