Bailey Willis

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Bailey Willis

Bailey Willis (born March 31, 1857 in Idlewild-on-Hudson, New York , USA , † February 19, 1949 in Palo Alto , California ) was an American geologist .

Willis was the son of the poet and publisher Nathaniel Parker Willis , went to school in England and Germany (so that he spoke fluent German) and studied at Columbia University in New York, where he earned degrees in mechanical and civil engineering in 1878 and 1879, respectively . From 1881 he was a geologist and surveyor with the Northern Pacific Railroad and from 1884 to 1915 he was with the US Geological Survey (USGS), in which he headed the Appalachian Department from 1889 . In 1893 he published a report for the USGS on the structural geology of the Appalachians. In 1900 he became head of the Areal Geology department at the USGS. In addition to his work at the USGS, he lectured at Johns Hopkins University from 1895 to 1902 . In 1903 he led an expedition of the Carnegie Institution to China, about which he later published a book. In 1910 he was entrusted by the Argentine government with the management of a commission for the investigation of hydrology in Northern Patagonia , to which the topographer Emilio Frey belonged. His engagement in Argentina lasted until 1914. Then he left the USGS and in 1915 became a professor at Stanford University , which he remained until 1922. He turned increasingly to seismology and led campaigns for safe building for earthquakes. From 1921 to 1926 he was President of the Seismological Society of America .

Willis has published on a wide range of topics in geology, including the geology of China, Africa (rift fractures and others), Chile, and the Philippines. He was an opponent of continental drift and published his arguments in 1928. In 1899 he was involved in making Mount Rainier National Park.

In 1905 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . In 1912 he became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1915 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and in 1920 a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1928 he was President of the Geological Society of America .

In 1910 he was awarded the gold medal of the Société Géographique de France , in 1944 with the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America. He was an honorary doctor from the University of Berlin.

literature

  • Eliot Blackwelder: Bailey Willis: 1857-1949, in: Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences, 1961. pdf

Fonts

  • The Mechanics of the Appalachian Structure, US Geological Survey, 3rd Annual Report, Part 2, 1893, pp. 211-281
  • Overthrusts in the United States, Vienna International Geological Congress 1904
  • Geological Map of North America (French), 10 Internat. Geological Congress 1907
  • with Eliot Blackwelder, RH Sargent: Research in China, 2 volumes, Carnegie Institution Pub. 54, 1907
  • Index to the Stratigraphy of North America, accompanied by a geological map of North America, USGS Professional Paper 71, 1912
  • with Robin Willis: Geologic Structures, 3rd edition McGraw Hill 1934 (first as sole author 1923)
  • Continental Drift, American Association of Petroleum Geologists 1928, pp. 76-82
  • Earthquakes in the Holy Land, Bulletin Seismological Society of America, 18, 1928, 73-103
  • Continental Genesis, Bulletin Geolog. Soc. America, 40, 1929, 281-336
  • Living Africa: A Geologist's Wanderings Through the Rift Valleys, Whittlesey House, McGraw Hill 1930
  • Isthmian Links, Bulletin Geolog. Soc. America, Vol. 43, 1932, pp. 917-952
  • African Plateaus and Rift Valleys, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC Publ. 470, 1936
  • Studies in Comparative Seismology: East African Plateaus and Rift Valleys, Carnegie Institution 1936
  • San Andreas Rift, California, Journal of Geology, 46, 1938, 793-827
  • Continental Drift, a fairy tale, American Journal of Science, 242, 1944, 509-513
  • A Yanqui in Patagonia, Stanford University Press 1947
  • Friendly China: Two Thousand Miles Afoot Among the Chinese, Stanford University Press, 1949.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Bailey Willis. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 1, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Bailey Willis (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 6, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Willis, Bailey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Idlewild-on-Hudson , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1949
Place of death Palo Alto , California