Lasting Memories

Robert Oliver Castle
Dec. 31, 1926-June 23, 2017
Palo Alto, California
Submitted by Susan Castle

Bob Castle, a Palo Alto resident for 52 years, passed away on June 23, 2017 from complications due to Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a neurological disease.

Robert Oliver Castle was born on December 31, 1926, at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California; the only child of Florence Oliver Castle, a homemaker, and Herman Edwards Castle, an insurance salesman.

The majority of Bob’s childhood was spent in Berkeley, climbing the Indian Rocks, learning to sail in the Berkeley Marina, and holding the record for the triple standing broad jump at Berkeley High. Midway through high school, the family relocated to Seattle, Washington, due to his father’s service as a Navy navigator in World War II. While at Roosevelt High, Bob learned that, due to the war’s drain on students, he could leave high school and enter Stanford University without completing his high school diploma. He jumped at the chance and entered Stanford in the fall of 1943, at the age of 16. He graduated in 1948 with a BS in geology. During that time, he served in the Navy as an electronics technician for 1 ½ years. He stayed active in the Naval Reserve until June 1959.

After Stanford, Bob was admitted to Yale Medical School, but was forced to withdraw when his funding fell through. Instead, he ventured to Montreal, Quebec, where he acquired a master’s degree in geology at McGill University in 1949. He continued his study of “rocks” at Caltech in Pasadena and later at UCLA.

It was during his time at Caltech that he met his future wife, Pamela Rowbotham. They married in April 1954 in San Dimas, CA on Pam’s family citrus ranch. The newlyweds headed out to Massachusetts where Bob taught at the University of Massachusetts and began his long tenure with the United States Geological Survey. Bob and Pam’s first child, Peter, was born in Lawrence, MA, in June 1956.

His studies at UCLA brought the young family back to the West Coast in 1957, where Bob worked for the Survey and, in 1964, completed his Ph.D. They lived in the San Fernando Valley where their second child, Susan, was born in July 1959.

In the summer of 1965, Bob had the opportunity to join the Menlo Park division of the U.S.G.S. He and Pam bought a home in the Greenmeadow neighborhood of Palo Alto, where many friendships formed and endured for the rest of his life.

In the years Bob worked for the U.S. Geological Survey, he produced a number of groundbreaking studies. Following the disastrous southern California Baldwin Hills Dam failure, his detailed study of elevation changes proved conclusively that the dam failure resulted from oil pumping, and his report was the basis for millions of dollars of lawsuit settlements. In another study, published in the journal Science, Bob showed, with detailed maps, that a large part of southern California had risen, in places by as much as one meter, and then partially collapsed after large earthquakes. His work, in and of itself, is a major contribution to the science of geology, and has been the basis for studies by many other geologists.

In addition to geology, Bob loved going to Kauai, the one place he could truly relax, and sailing in his Columbia 9.6, “Selket,” on the gusty San Francisco Bay.

Bob retired from the Survey after 40 years, but continued his research and studies as a Scientist Emeritus for many years after. In his retirement, he also tutored in reading; studied Spanish, highlighted a six-week immersion course in Costa Rica; and traveled the world with Pam to Alaska, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia. Although sidelined by his disease in the last few years, Bob continued to read and stay abreast of the news. His keen mind and uncanny recollection of history stayed intact to the end. Bob is survived by his wife of 63 years, Pam, his daughter, Susan, and her husband, Bill Work (Claremont, CA), and his granddaughters, Molly Work (Minneapolis, MN) and Erin Work, a senior at Middlebury College in Vermont. His son, Peter, died in 1994.