John Walter Gregory

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John Walter Gregory

John Walter Gregory (born January 27, 1864 in Bow , London , † June 2, 1932 in Peru ) was a British geologist and explorer.

After his first expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1891, the trained geologist came to East Africa in 1893 , where he first set up camp on Lake Naivasha . Because of clashes with the Maasai , he moved further north to Lake Baringo . There he established the basis of observations and rock samples the emergence of the local grave breach firm and named it " Great Rift Valley " , on the assumption that it is the world's largest such rejection. The name was later transferred to the entire branched geological system of the East African Rift Valley , today the name "Great Rift Valley" is also used for the Great African Rift Valley .

From 1887 to 1900 he worked as a geologist at the British Museum before he was appointed professor of geology at Melbourne University . In the same year he was invited to take part in the Discovery expedition to Antarctica . Assuming that the position of the expedition leader was connected with it, he returned to England for the preparatory work. When he learned there that the expedition would be under the direction of Robert Falcon Scott , he withdrew his commitment and returned to Australia . There he undertook several expeditions into what he called the “dead heart” of the continent.

In 1904 Gregory returned to Great Britain to accept a professorship at the University of Glasgow , which he would hold until 1929. In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . He undertook numerous other expeditions, including to Libya (1908) and Angola (1912). From 1928 until his retirement in 1930 he was President of the Geological Society in London .

In 1932 he made another trip, this time to South America . There he drowned on June 2nd while crossing the Urubamba River in Peru .

Gregory was married to Adriana Chaplin.

He left behind a large number of geological publications (over 300), including, for example, a collection of eyewitness accounts of the earthquake in Glasgow from the 1910th

The island Gregory Iceland in Antarctica is named after him.

William Quarrier Kennedy is one of his students .

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