From  the Spring 2019 Rice Owlmanac:

Stephen Pompea (Wiess: BA) writes: “I am sad to report that my longtime close friend and research partner, Peter G.K. Kahn (Lovett: BA), passed away in Austin, June 5, 2018, after being stricken with septic shock.

The only deferment in this terrible turn of events was that he was surrounded by his family and friends. “Although both his parents were noted scholars in the humanities (his father was a former head of Germanic studies at Rice and his mother a poet and professor at Texas Southern U.), Peter graduated from Rice with a passion for the geosciences and especially paleontology. He was particularly influenced by James Lee Wilson Sr. ’42, who was the Harry Carothers Wiess Chair of Geology and department head.

After graduation, Peter obtained a master’s degree from the U. of Berlin and then spent his career with notable oil and gas exploration companies in Denver, London and Houston, working in high-level positions for companies such as Sohio, British Petroleum and Statoil in his search for hydrocarbons in the North Sea, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Gulf of Mexico, among other areas.

“Peter was a polymath with great skill in creative writing and painting as well as basin modeling and structural geology. His ability to conduct highly creative, cutting-edge interdisciplinary research was unmatched.

Before he was 25, he authored a cover article in the Nature science journal on using changes in the growth rhythms of fossil nautiloids to trace the orbital evolution of the Earth-moon system over 500 million years. He initiated this project while a Rice undergraduate, when he was spending time at the U. of Tübingen studying the biometrics of ammonite shells.

Peter’s deep imagination about the geologic past, his courage in pursuing his ideas to their natural resolution and his willingness to collaborate internationally with experts from other disciplines were keys to his success in this research. “These same qualities enabled him to be a most successful geologist, making discoveries based on his understanding of complex oil migration routes over time using advanced computer modeling and visualization techniques.

Peter was also in high demand with his colleagues as a source of creative ideas and as a deep thinker available to help them test their reasoning. “Peter was widely read, an engaging conversationalist on any topic, a loving and devoted husband and father, and a staunch friend. He demanded the same high level of excellence from all those around him that he demanded of himself. For this he was deeply respected; now he is deeply missed.”