Passing through the lower botanic garden, it is hard to miss the Clive Lister Garden, a serene area enclosed by walls of evergreen shrubs, small trees and bamboo to provide shelter.
The garden, opened in 1998, replaced a large triangular bedding plot. The Lister Garden sign reads in part: "A geophysicist at the University of Washington, USA, [Clive Lister] visited Dunedin frequently to work at the University of Otago. During these times Dunedin Botanic Garden provided a place for thought and contemplation."
Dunedin’s Lister Garden is not Clive Lister’s only eponym. LISTER, onboard the Blue Ghost lunar lander, was launched into space on a Falcon 9 rocket on January 15, and landed on the Moon on March 2.
Texas Tech’s Seiichi Nagihara named the lunar heat flow probe Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity in acknowledgement of Clive Lister’s mentorship and contributions to the study of heat flow through ocean floors on Earth.
Lister is drilling 2-3m into the moon’s surface to study the temperature profile.
Clive Ronald Bruno Lister was born in Uxbridge, England, on February 8, 1936. He received a BA in physics in 1959, and a PhD in geophysics in 1962, both from Cambridge University. Lister was an oceanography assistant professor (research) at University of Washington, USA, and held a halftime appointment in the Geophysics programme from 1969.
He attended the 1987 Geology Society conference in Dunedin and thereafter spent time at the Otago geology department as a William Evans Visiting Professor from January-August 1989.
The geophysics senior lecturer at the time (now Emeritus Professor at University of Maine), Peter Koons, recalls: "Clive was years and light years ahead of me and the rest of the geophysical community in recognising that the key to understanding hydrothermal circulation in oceanic and continental lithosphere lay in unwrapping the material behaviour of a mechanically and chemically reactive Earth, capable of fracturing and sealing."
In 1977 the Galapagos Hydrothermal Expedition went in search of deep ocean hot springs, or hydrothermal vents, at the Mid-Ocean Ridge where new tectonic plate material is generated. Incredibly, using the manned submersible Alvin, they discovered hot zones just as Lister predicted.
Lister had provided both the theoretical prediction of hydrothermal vents, and the instrumentation required to measure the temperature in extreme environments — inspiring Nagihara’s lunar Lister instrument years later.
The Otago geology department benefited from Lister’s practical expertise. Koons recalls Lister not only had a long reputation in marine geophysics but also had several patents for state-of-the-art geophysical equipment and was an enormous help in getting the side-scan sonar and high-resolution single channel seismic boomer system up and running on the university’s research vessel Munida (the precursor to Polaris II).
Following the William Evans Visiting Professorship, Clive returned to Otago as a Visitor over several months in 1991-92 and 1993-94, after taking early retirement from University of Washington in 1990.
Lister died of a heart attack at his home in Washington State on August 4 1995, only eight months after his last visit to Dunedin. A championship whitewater kayaker, Lister had left his kayak with friends in Dunedin, obviously anticipating returning; they still have it.
Unbeknownst to all in Dunedin, in 1996 he had bequeathed a significant amount of money to the Dunedin Botanic Garden for a permanent planting.
Koons remembers meeting Lister for coffee in Seattle not long before he died: "I recall being impressed by how relaxed and cheerful he was. Some of that relaxation was no doubt related to his time in Dunedin, particularly time spent in the gardens. Although I knew that he enjoyed the gardens, I had not an inkling about his planned gift ... I doubt if Clive shared [his] plans ... he was only 59 when he died, and he was looking forward to a much longer life with a wide spectrum of scientific and personal dreams."
Koons believes had Lister’s visits to Dunedin continued, they would have led to valuable scientific collaborations with other research groups within the Department of Geology.
In 2013, the worm sculpture by Julia Morison, inspired by the mythical symbol of regeneration ouroboros (a snake eating its tail) was added to the Lister Garden. It is popular with children. As a toddler my son lost his favourite Matchbox car over the stone balustrade of the Clive Lister Bridge.
Five years later, we talk about how layers of mud have now buried the toy in the upper reaches of the duck pond; only a geophysical survey would find them now.
As I look up to the moon, I contemplate connection and regeneration. Regular walks through Lister Garden help me celebrate a notable scientist, his fondness for Dunedin, a mentor for many, and a geophysicist whose legacy now reaches from Dunedin to beyond the skies.
• Faye Nelson is an assistant research fellow in the geology department at the University of Otago.
