Samuel Calvin (geologist)

Samuel Calvin (1882)

Samuel Calvin (born February 2, 1840 in Wigtonshire , Scotland , † April 17, 1911 in Iowa City , Iowa ) was an American geologist and paleontologist .

Life

Calvin came to New York with his parents at the age of 11 and grew up in Iowa in a pioneering atmosphere (the country was mostly wilderness at the time). At the age of 16 he taught at a village school and was also a cabinet maker. From 1862 to 1864 he attended Lenox College in Hopkinton (Iowa) , where he became an instructor in mathematics. From January 1864 he served as a volunteer in the Civil War and after his return from the war in 1867/68 was Superintendent of Delaware County in Iowa. He married in 1870. 1869 to 1873 he directed a school in Dubuque and from 1874 he was professor of natural history at the University of Iowa as the successor to Charles A. White , where he taught zoology, botany and geology. He built a paleontological collection there and geologically explored the upper Mississippi Valley. On his initiative, the Iowa Geological Survey was launched in 1892 and he was there until 1904 state geologist. In this capacity, he edited 20 volumes of the reports from the survey.

In 1908 he was president of the Geological Society of America . In 1888 he was a co-founder of the American Geologist magazine , 1888-1894 the editor and then until 1905 Associate Editor. In 1908 he was president of the Iowa Academy of Sciences.

Among other things, he dealt with the Pleistocene of Iowa, particularly mammalian fossils from the Aftonian interglacial. A number of first descriptions of fossils come from him and a number of fossils are named in his honor.

He was an honorary doctor of Cornell College and Lenox College.

Web links

Commons : Samuel Calvin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• B. Shimek, obituary in GSA Bulletin Volume 23, 1912, Archives