My brother, Ian McMillan, who has died aged 72, was a micropalaeontologist who specialised in the study of foraminifera – microfossils that provide evidence of the age of rock layers, and which are therefore useful in providing data for the oil and diamond industries.
His expertise led him to work mainly in South Africa, but he also took part in projects in Sierra Leone, Angola, Namibia, Cameroon, Argentina and Tanzania. He published about 50 articles and papers, and made a major contribution to the understanding of the geological history of the marine sediments of southern Africa.
