John W. Morse, 63, of Bryan, passed away Monday, November 23, 2009, at St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan. Memorial services are set for 11 a.m., Saturday, November 28, 2009, at Callaway-Jones Funeral Home in Bryan.

John was born November 11, 2009, in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, to Wilbur and Velma Morse. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Minnesota and a P.H.D. in Geology from Yale in 1973. He has been a resident of the Bryan College Station community for 28 years, after moving here from Miami, Florida.

John started teaching Oceanography at Texas A&M University in 1981. Previously, he taught at Florida State University and the University of Miami. Recently he served as the interim head of the Oceanography Department at Texas A&M University.

His honors include a Fulbright Scholarship and being named a Distinguished Senior Visiting Research Scientist in the School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences at Cardiff University in Wales. He was the initial holder of the Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Chair in Oceanography in 1999. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Geochemical Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the European Union of Geochemists.

He ranked in the Top 200 Earth Scientists in the world and he has more than 150 publications to his credit. He was an editor of Marine Chemistry and editor-in-chief of Aquatic Geochemistry. At the time of his death he was in the midst of writing a book.

Apart from his love for teaching and research, he also had a strong passion for fishing, playing his guitar, and walking his English Springer Spaniels.

Survivors include his wife, Sandra Morse; daughter, Angela Morse, of Bryan; sister, Kristi Morse, of Deluth, Minnesota; mother-in-law, Mildred Key, of Calhoun, Tennessee; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Ronnie and Hazel Key, of Charleston, Tennessee; and niece, Jacqueline Henry, of Cleveland, Tennessee.