Our father, José Moacyr Vianna Coutinho, died this morning, in his home, after a difficult period in which he fought a respiratory deficiency and an infection. He was born on April 4, 1924, and was 97 years old when he died. As a scientist, our father was a pioneer in the Earth Sciences in Latin America and it is safe to say that he dedicated more than 60 years to educating new geologists, to the solution of geological puzzles and to carving a space for science in Brazil. It is also safe to say that, during these same 60 plus years, he enjoyed the partnership and complicity of our mother, Maria de Lourdes Coutinho, whom he met in college where they were both students at the Natural History program at the University of São Paulo.
His descendents and disciples showed up more or less at the same time. Our father graduated and then became a professor at the recently founded University of São Paulo (USP) at the same time that we, his biological descendents, were born. Our parents got married and had their first son in 1949. Meanwhile, at the USP, the first generation of disciples enrolled in his classes.
Despite the unanimous acknowledgement that J.M.V. Coutinho was a great geologist, our father kept the interdisciplinary outlook of a “naturalist” his whole life, and he did consider alternative academic routes. Multi-talented and…