John Casper Branner

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John Casper Branner

John Casper Branner (born July 4, 1850 in New Market , Tennessee , † March 1, 1922 in Palo Alto , California ) was an American geologist .

Life

Branner studied at Maryville College and Cornell University . As a student he took part in a geological survey of Brazil by his geology professor in Cornell Charles F. Hartt , which lasted from 1874 to 1883. He also looked for combustible plant fibers on behalf of Thomas Edison and studied agricultural insect pests (for example in cotton and sugar cane) on behalf of the US government. In 1882 he received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University. 1883 to 1885 he worked for the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania under J. Peter Lesley in the Lackawanna Valley (known for anthracite deposits), which he mapped and whose glacial geology he dealt with. In 1885 he became a geology professor at Indiana University in Bloomington and from 1887 to 1892 he was state geologist of Arkansas . There, at the beginning of 1888, he declared a number of gold and silver mining companies in Arkansas, which had raised capital for 113 million dollars, to be worthless, that is, their promises were irrelevant (Comstock report based on Assistant Geologist Thomas Comstock). This led to furious protests and attempts to ruin his career, which he survived. He remained a state geologist until 1893 when the Geological Survey officially ended. During his time as a state geologist, he found large deposits of bauxite in Arkansas. A total of 14 volumes with the information from the survey were published with 60 cards.

From 1892 until his retirement in 1916 he was a professor at the then newly founded Stanford University and from 1898 Vice President of the university (under David Starr Jordan as President, who had already brought him to the University of Indiana) and from 1913 until his retirement in 1915 President.

In 1899 (under Alexander Agassiz) and 1907/08 he was again on expeditions in Brazil. He was on the government commission on the Panama Canal and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

As one of the leading geologists in California, he also examined the building site for the St. Francis Dam . This broke out in 1928 with many deaths as a result. In the investigation, the subsoil was later found to be unsuitable, but this had not been recognized according to the state of engineering geology at the time (the geologist and well-known American civil engineer Carl E. Grunsky had also expressed no concerns).

In addition to geology, he dealt with botany , ichthyology and entomology and wrote a grammar of Portuguese that was published several times. His botanical author abbreviation is " Branner ".

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and in 1904 President of the Geological Society of America , of which he was a fellow and founding member. In 1890 he was Vice President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 1911 President of the American Seismological Society . Branner received multiple honorary doctorates (including University of Chicago, University of California and in 1885 from Indiana University).

He had been married since 1883 and had a daughter and two sons.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ St. Francis Dam Disaster , Water and Power Associates
personal data
SURNAME Branner, John Casper
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Branner (botanical author abbreviation)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH New Market , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1922
Place of death Palo Alto , California