摘要：Untimely, untimely – that is the only word that burstinto my mind when I first heard the blood-chilling newsthat Ryszard Marcinowski had died. He passed away un-expectedly on April 4 th , 2010. Untimely, because he wasonly 64 years old. Untimely, because he was able tocomplete a mere 40 recognized scientific papers, nine ofwhich being faunal (primarily ammonite) monographs,all published since 1970. He left a number of unfinishedprojects, some of which have been continued by his col-laborators and friends, and a vast quantity of undescribedammonite material. Among the latter, he most valued therich collection of Schloenbachiafrom Kazakhstan, nowdescribed by Jim Kennedy and included in this issue ofActa Geologica Polonica. The captivating collection ofextraordinarily preserved Kazakh ammonites was atreasure he brought back from his second Mangyshlakexpedition. The genus Schloenbachiawas always one ofhis favourites, having been collected and studied in var-ious European countries, and first found by him duringhis M.Sc. fieldwork (1967–1969) in the Polish Jura, eastof Częstochowa [paper no. 2, in the list of Ryszard’s sci-entific papers]. This early fieldwork introduced him tothe peculiar facies and lithological diversity of the mid-Cretaceous succession. This soon became the principalsubject of his further research in Poland [3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 15,17, 19, 27, 40] and farther afield, in Germany [14, 34],the Ukraine [9, 10], Central Asia [18, 31, 33], as well asfar-distant Madagascar [37]. Of these researches, themost spectacular are the results of investigations overmany years of the classic section exposed at Annopol-on-Vistula in Central Poland, conducted by himself per-sonally, or co-authored with his teachers [17, 28], friends,and/or students [20]. An important monograph summa-rizing these studies, co-authored with Jost Wiedmann[28], was widely appreciated and was awarded highlyby the Minister of National Education in 1991.
