The death of the English pioneer of applied geochemistry, Emeritus Professor John Stuart Webb in April 2007 marked the end of an era. Under his leadership, applications in exploration geochemistry at the Geochemical Prospecting Research Centre (GPRC), founded by him in the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1954, broadened out to embrace regional geochemistry; applied marine geochemistry, especially the investigation of metalliferous brines and manganese nodules; agricultural and environmental geochemistry; multi-purpose geochemical mapping; and, in more recent years, urban geochemistry. To reflect this widening field of applications, in 1963 the GPRC was renamed the Applied Geochemistry Research Group (AGRG). Well over 100 students have graduated with higher degrees from the school which Webb began in 1954 and, while some of the earliest graduates are now retired, many have held, or are in, senior positions in industry, geological surveys, or the academic sphere, worldwide.

Following his retirement in June 1979, Webb held the position of Senior Research Fellow until 1988, when the official closure of the AGRG took place. The environmental programme was then renamed the Environmental Geochemistry Research Group and moved, for administrative reasons, into the Imperial College Centre for Environmental Technology (ICCET); and marine geochemistry was absorbed into the main body of the Geology Department. However, research in both environmental and marine geochemistry continued to prosper at Imperial College for another 20 …