Eliot Blackwelder
Eliot Blackwelder (born June 4, 1880 in Chicago , † January 14, 1969 ) was an American geologist .
Life
As a teenager, Blackwelder collected beetles and butterflies and observed birds. He studied geology in Chicago from 1897 with a bachelor's degree in 1901 and took part in an expedition to China under Bailey Willis . On the way there via Siberia, they visited the International Geological Congress in Vienna. From 1905 he was at the University of Wisconsin , where he received a full professorship in 1910. In 1914 he received his doctorate in Chicago and in 1916 he became a professor of geology at the University of Illinois . During this time he also worked a lot in the summer for the US Geological Survey. In 1919 he went to Stanford University as a visiting professor, but became chief geologist at the Argus Oil Company in Denver that same year. In 1921 he became a professor at Harvard and in 1922 he moved to Stanford, where he headed the geology faculty until his retirement in 1945.
Discoveries and honors
He dealt with the geomorphology of desert regions and demonstrated the previous existence of lakes in arid regions of southern California and Nevada and studied glaciation in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. He was one of the first to recognize that the meteor crater in Arizona is an impact crater, studied landslides and demonstrated the erosion ability of ice at low temperatures. In China he found evidence of a Precambrian glaciation ( Marino Ice Age ). His Muddy Creek Problem denotes a geological mystery in the formation of the Grand Canyon that he encountered while working as a geologist on the Hoover Dam.
In 1940 he was President of the Geological Society of America and from 1947 to 1949 of the Seismological Society. He was a member of the California Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences (1936) and, since 1939, the American Philosophical Society . He was an honorary member of the Geological Association .
The Blackwelder Glacier in East Antarctica Victoria Land is named in his honor.
Private life
He had been married since 1904 and had seven children. His son Richard Blackwelder (1909-2001) was a professor of zoology at Southern Illinois University .
literature
- Konrad B. Krauskopf: Eliot Blackwelder, 1880-1969 . A Biographical Memoir (= Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences . Volume 48 ). Washington, DC 1976, ISBN 0-309-02349-1 , pp. 83-103 ( nasonline.org [PDF]).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Member History: Eliot Blackwelder. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 3, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Blackwelder, Eliot |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 4, 1880 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 14, 1969 |