Edwin D. McKee

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Edwin McKee with a nuthatch in the Grand Canyon, 1929.

Edwin Dinwiddie "Eddie" McKee (born September 24, 1906 in Washington, DC , † July 23, 1984 in Denver ) was an American naturalist , geologist and sedimentologist. He was considered a leading expert on the geology of the Grand Canyon .

Life

McKee attended the US Naval Academy and then studied geology at Cornell University , which he broke off in 1929 before completing his doctorate to become a ranger in the Grand Canyon , which he became interested in as a youngster (his scout master's with the Boy Scouts was the topographer of the Grand Canyon Francois Emile Matthes) and where he did research regularly in summer as a student. Shortly before, the position offered to him had become vacant because the ranger Glen E. Sturdevant drowned while crossing the Colorado River. As early as 1927 he was involved in setting up a museum at Yavapai Point on the Grand Canyon. In 1929 he married the biologist Barbara McKee, who was also researching in the Grand Canyon as an assistant to Vernon Orlando Bailey . Partly with his wife, with whom he had three children, McKee did research not only as a geologist, but also through systematic recording of vertebrates. There he discovered the endemic rattlesnake Crotalus viridis abyssus, about which he published in 1930. He was also a specialist in butterflies, observed birds with his wife and studied the ethnology of the local Indians (Havasupai). As a ranger in the US National Parks was routinely transferred to another park after 10 years (he was supposed to go to Yosemite), he resigned in 1942 and went to the Museum of Northern Arizona as Assistant Director for Research. At the same time he was at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he became a professor in 1951, although he only had a bachelor's degree throughout his life. From 1953 he was with the US Geological Survey in Denver, where he headed the department of palaeo-tectonic maps, from 1961 was a research geologist and after his retirement in 1977 had a research laboratory for sedimentology. His studies of recent and fossil sediments took him to all continents except Antarctica. He is buried in the Grand Canyon Cemetery.

In 1975 he received the William H. Twenhofel Medal . In 1957 he received an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University.

Fonts

  • Ancient Landscapes of the Grand Canyon Region, 1931 (30 editions until 1985)
  • The environment and history of the Toroweap and Kaibab formations of northern Arizona and southern Utah: Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 492, 1938
  • with CE Resser: Cambrian history of the Grand Canyon region: Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 563, 1945, 232
  • Sedimentary Structures in Dunes of the Namib Desert, South West Africa, US Geological Survey Special Paper, 1982
  • The Supai Group of Grand Canyon: US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1173, 1983

literature

  • Earle E. Spamer, Grand Vision of Edwin D. McKee, GSA Today, November 1999

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ McKee, The Grand Canyon rattlesnake, Grand Canyon Nature Notes, v. 4, no. 6, 1930, p. 40. See also McKee, Discovery of the Grand Canyon Rattlesnake, Journal of Arizona History, v. 17, 1976, pp. 47-49.
  2. ↑ He studied in 1930/31 further at the University of Arizona, 1933/34 in Berkeley and 1939/40 as a Park Service Fellow at Yale
  3. ↑ He oversaw reports for the Jurassic (1956), Triassic (1960), Permian (1967), and Pennsylvanian (1975), and contributed to the Mississipian (1979)
personal data
SURNAME McKee, Edwin D.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McKee, Edwin Dinwiddie (full name); McKee, Eddie (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American naturalist, geologist, and sedimentologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1984
Place of death Denver