Peter Ballance geology field notebooks.

Peter Frederick Ballance (1936-2009). Born in Stoke-on-Trent, England in 1936 Peter Ballance studied geology at Queen Mary College, University of London graduating with BSc Honours in 1957. He was awarded a UK department of Scientific and Industrial Research Scholarship to undertake a PhD at the University of London where he examined the upper Jurassic and lower Cretaceous strata in the Thames- Aylesbury area west of London.

While completing his PhD, Ballance accepted a lectureship in stratigraphy at the University of Auckland and with his wife Queenie immigrated to New Zealand in 1961. Ballance would teach geology at Auckland University until his retirement in 1998, developing the Department’s soft rock programme and expanding the stratigraphy curriculum to include sedimentlogy, tectonics and basin and crustal development. In 1996 he was awarded a DSc in recognition of his contribution to the geology of the Southwest Pacific.

Ballance was a national committee member of the Geological Society of New Zealand during the late 1960s and President in 1971 and 1972. He was an active member of the International Association of Sedimentologists and served on the organisation’s council between 1982 and 1986 and 1994 and 1998. Ballance also a member of the Editorial Board of the Association's journal Sedimentology from 1992 to 1998 and between 1989 and 1992 he served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Sedimentary Petrology.

Ballance died in Auckland in 2009 and was survived by his wife Queenie and their four children.

Black, P and Locke, C. (2010) Peter Frederick Ballance 1936–2009. Geological Society of New Zealand Newsletter, no. 151(2010), pp 22-25.