Don was raised in Bear River, Nova Scotia. He was a geology graduate of Acadia University (B.Sc. 1958) and from the University of Toronto (M.Sc. 1961; Ph.D. 1964), both supervised by Professor L.W. Nuffield. Don was a sports enthusiast, whose two great passions were curling and golf. After his retirement, Don excelled in golf, winning several senior championships at the Rideauview Golf Club in Ottawa. He also played when he could overseas such as when he visited Torry Weiser and the German Geological Survey in Hannover in 1994, shown getting ready to swing his club in photo below. He is survived by his wife Diane, his partner for nearly 55 years, four children, grandfather of eight, and great grandfather of four.
Don’s mineralogical career began at the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) as assistant curator in 1963. In 1964 he joined the Mines Branch in the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (Ottawa) to develop and use the new ARL-EMX electron microprobe (see Ecklund, 1981) in support of the activities of the Mineral Sciences Division in the Mineralogy Section headed by Ernie Nickel (1925-2009). The work of the Mineralogy Section continued to be the study of the mineralogy of deposits undergoing processing test-work in the Mines Branch’s pilot plant, but also the new Sulphide Research Program. This sought to investigate fundamental properties of sulfide minerals and attracted solid-state physicists (John Keys, Jack Horwood, and Mike Townsend), chemists (Philip Manning and Gordie Faye), and crystallographers (Eric Gabe, Jan Szymański, and Australian Syd Hall). Among his early contributions to the Sulphide Research Program was in the article by Keys et al. (1968). Other examples soon followed including Faye & Harris (1969) and Manning & Harris (1970). He published a seminal paper on Os-Ru-Ir alloys in 1973 that was updated in 1991 to conform with the nomenclature of the International Mineralogical Association: Harris, & Cabri (1991). He left CANMET (formerly Mines Branch) in 1982 to join the Mineral Deposits group of the Geological Survey of Canada from where he retired in 1995. Among his major contributions at the Geological Survey of Canada was his study of the mineralogy and geochemistry of the Hemlo gold deposit, Ontario in 1989). In this comprehensive study of the Hemlo gold deposits Don found and described three new minerals: Criddleite (Harris et al., 1988), Vaughanite (Harris et al., 1989a), and Hemloite (Harris et al., 1989b). He published a total of 53 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Don’s career accolades include the Hawley Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada for the best published paper in The Canadian Mineralogist (Harris & Nickel, 1972). Their study showed that the composition of natural pentlandites is intimately related to the sulfide assemblage in which it occurs. Plotting their results on an Fe-Ni-S ternary diagram implied that the temperature of final equilibrium of all the investigated pentlandite assemblages that contain pyrite or millerite was below 250°C, slightly higher than found in synthetic studies. Their results have further very important economic and geological implications when applied to orebodies, in particular to the low-grade nickel-bearing serpentinites. The new mineral donharrisite from Austria was named in his honor for his major contribution to the mineralogy of ores (Paar et al., 1989).
The Mineralogical Association of Canada benefited from Don’s volunteer work, especially during critical stages such as when he kept the subscription office going at Canmet for many years before it moved to the ROM. He personally kept the membership addresses updated on a metal stencils prior to addressing the envelopes, inserting the journal and mailing it. Something not seen in today’s environment. He also served as Associate editor of The Canadian Mineralogist from 1976 to 1978.
He served as MAC's Canadian representative for 25 years to the Commission of New Minerals and Mineral Names until his retirement in 1995. At that time, he was the longest serving representative. He treated each submission with great care and sought the help of mineralogists expert in particular fields, enabling for an informed voting decision and comments. This is something lacking in today’s Commission of New Minerals, Mineral Names, and Nomenclature. He also served as Vice-chairman to the commission on Ore Mineralogy, IMA, 1986-1990.
Our condolences go out to his wife Diane and to his children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. Don Harris was a friend and a professional colleague on several projects as well as on International conferences such as 13th General IMA Meeting in Varna (Bulgaria) and the Gold 89 in Europe in Toulouse (France) in 1989. A photograph taken at lunch in Varna shows Don on extreme right with the late Ahmed el Goresy next to him. Below that photo is a photo of Don and Torry Weiser on the beach in front of the Goldstrand restaurant. The beach on the resort on the Black Sea was on some days contaminated by lumps of bunker oil discharged by military ships.
Photo of delegates on a trolley that took delegates from the Varna conference to the restaurant and beach at Goldstrand. Don is on the left facing Joel Grice and me. Tanya Evstigneeva head is to Don’s left and the late Alan Criddle is behind Don.
Acknowledgements.
I am grateful to many who helped, especially to Johanne Caron and including Grant Henderson, Nelson O’Driscoll, Kim Tait, and Torry Weiser.
Selected Bibliography.
Eklund, L. (1981) Bausch & Lomb-ARL: Where We Come From, Who We are. Applied Spectroscopy 35, no. 2, 226-235.
Keys, J. D., Horwood, J.L., Baleshta, T.M., Cabri, L.J., & Harris, D.C. (1968) Iron-iron interaction in iron-containing zinc sulphide. The Canadian Mineralogist 9 (4) 453–467.
Faye, G.H. & Harris, D.C. (1969) On the origin of colour and pleochroism in andalusite from Brazil. The Canadian Mineralogist 10 (1) 47–56.
Manning, P.G. & Harris, D.C. (1970) Optical-absorption and electron-microprobe studies of some high-Ti andradites. The Canadian Mineralogist,10 (2) 260–271.
Harris, D.C. & Cabri, L.J. (1991) Nomenclature of platinum-group-element alloys: review and revision. The Canadian Mineralogist 29, 231-237.
Harris, D.C. (1989) The mineralogy and geochemistry of the Hemlo gold deposit, Ontario. Geological Survey of Canada, Economic Geology Report 38, 88pp.
Harris, D. C., Roberts, A. C., Laflamme, J.H.G. & Stanley, C.J. (1988) Criddleite (TlAg2Au3Sb 10S10), a new gold-bearing mineral from Hemlo , Ontario, Canada; Mineralogical Magazine 52, 691-697.
Harris, D.C., Roberts, A.C. & Criddle, A.J. (1989a) Vaughanite (TlHgSb4S7), a new mineral from the Hemlo gold deposit, Hemlo, Ontario, Canada. Mineralogical Magazine 53, 79-83.
Harris, D.C., Hoskins, B., Grey, I.E., Criddle, A.J. & Stanley, C.J. (1989b) Hemloite, a new mineral from the Hemlo gold deposit, Hemlo, Ontario, Canada. The Canadian Mineralogist 27, 427-440.
Harris, D.C. & Nickel, E.H. (1972) Pentlandite compositions and associations in some mineral deposits. The Canadian Mineralogist 11 (4) 861–878.
Paar, W.H., Chen, T.T., Roberts, A.C., Criddle, A.J. & Stanley, C.J. (1989) Donharrisite, nickel-mercury sulfide, a new mineral species. The Canadian Mineralogist 27, 257-262.
Louis J. Cabri, Ottawa, 27 September 2024