Rice mourns Professor Emeritus Hans Avé Lallemant

Hans Avé Lallemant, professor emeritus of Earth science, died Nov. 14. He was 78.

Hans Avé Lallemant

A pioneer in the rheology of the mantle and the structural evolution of mountain belts all over the world, Avé Lallemant traveled across the globe — from Alaska to southeast Asian to the Caribbean — for his field work.

He was one of the first to calibrate a rheologic law for the ductile deformation of mantle rocks. He studied the significance of transpression and transtension in mountain belts and developed new models for the exhumation of high-pressure rocks in accretionary prisms.

Born in Indonesia, Avé Lallemant was educated in the Netherlands, where he earned a doctorate in geology from the University of Leiden. He then moved to the United States and in 1970 became a professor in Rice’s Department of Earth Science, where he taught structural geology and field mapping. He retired in 2006.

A reception celebrating his life was held Nov. 18 at Rice. In lieu of flowers, his family requests that donations be made to the Lewy-Body Dementia Association.