The 25 Surnames
Wednesday July 9, 2008
If you got a mixed audience of well-educated geologists together and started giving a talk to them, there are certain people in the Earth sciences so eminent that you need only name their last name. Everyone would nod in recognition, nearly all could supply the first name without hesitation, and most could tell you what they're known for or at least their general field. Here's my rough cut of those great names:
Agassiz, Alvarez, Arrhenius, Bowen, Broecker, Cuvier, Dana, Darwin, Gutenberg, Halley, Hess, Holmes, Hubbert, Hutton, Jeffries, Lyell, Milankovitch, Mohorovicic, Morgan, Richter, Shoemaker, Simpson, Steno, Wegener, Wilson.
I would add Gilbert, except half the audience would be thinking G.K. the great field geologist and the other half William the magnetician. Probably it would be perfectly clear from context. Of this eminent group, three are alive, sixteen were active in the 20th century, five in the 19th, and four before 1800. Notice that many have something named after them, like Moho; others are in vogue today but will probably not be in a few generations, like Hubbert.
Most of these guys can be found in the Biographies category.
Comments
I agree on Gilbert (G.K.) and that brings to mind Powell (where there’s a similar conundrum between John Wesley and Colin, though it’s the former that left the larger lasting mark on geology).
However, I’d most like to add an honorary mention for McPhee. I suspect your avid readers will have no trouble recognizing the owner of that name and his significance to our field (at least in the modern day) as well.
I’d be quick to add Goldschmidt to that list. He’s widely considered the father of geochemistry.
Maybe Bloss, the optical mineralogist?
Who are those guys?
If we add McPhee, I’d also put in Sagan and Gould.
Someday I’m going to read and blog about the Beer-Can Experiment paper, just to identify Hubbert with something other than his peak.
I agree with McPhee and Gould. Winchester may be up and coming. Sagan (while clearly recognizable) would be like Einstein (though his son, Albert Jr., was a fluvial geomorphologist) or Hawking. Recognizable names, but don’t specifically address the earth sciences.
I contest Alvarez for the same reason Gilbert didn’t make the list. Walter is the son (and 2nd author) on the 1980 paper, and Luis is the father (and lead author).
The argument against this would be, I assume, most would associate with Walter, and they would be associated (primarily) with the same project. Though both did other things in their careers. For instance, Luis is the individual who solved the “back and to the left” aspect of the JFK assassination. You could also make the argument that Luis was a physicist and Walter the geologist. But Luis did submit a well-known paper regarding earth science, so he effectively practiced geology for a period of time.
Intersting list, I would question the inclusion of Darwin whose real claim to fame lies within the life sciences (notwithsnading the fact that he was indeed a very good geologist) and the exclusion of William Smith (read “The Map That Changed The World”, this man virtually invented biostratigraphy), Sir Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick.
Do not forget Stephen Jay Gould!
You missed William Smith
He’s called the Father of English Geology but as far as I can see he was the worlds first stratigrapher in the modern sense of the word. He was also responsible for the development of the first dedicated Museum of geology in the world. This is the Rotunda museum in Scarborough ( U.K) I could go on but I would probably be accused of partisan ranting
Lists are always a challenge. Much like the 50 great boxers of all time, how does one compare John L. Sullivan, Joe Louis, Ali and Tyson. One would need to look at speciality or time period studied or worked. The day when one person could encompass an entire science is long gone. Steve Gould did not really do “Geology,” and as I recall his PhD was snails in Bermuda or some such. His interest in the Burgess was nased on others’ original work. William Cobban is a legend in geology and all of epeiric seaway and much of the world Mesozoic stratigraphy is because of Bill Cobban. Goldschmidt should certainly be in on the list, and where is Pettijohn? Where are the women for the list by the way?
When I say geology, I mean what’s generally called “Earth science” (for no good reason) today. Darwin’s theory is squarely within geology. Gould is famous among geologists for what you might call metascience, not the geology he’s actually done (Neogene snails). Smith–I’m sorry, you can’t say “Smith” at a gathering of mixed geologists and expect them to know who you’re talking about. As for women, I think there are a few but all are marginal but the first: Lehmann, Loeblich, Tharp, Keller, Atwater. In their domains Becker and Canup are well enough known to be one-namers, as are lots of others in their domains.
How about, Alden?
Andrew Alden?
Maybe because I mapped the Henry Mountains in 1980, but GK Gilbert has to be on the list. CB Hunt would be a good choice for us Colorado Plateau types. But also, what about Willard Libby and radiocarbon dating, or Runcorn and paleomagnetism? Or, or or…Holmes, Vine, Flint, Wilson, Dana, Theophrastus,Agricola, Werner, the first paleo human to chip a flint or grind hematite into pigment or pluck a copper nugget from the ground and hammer it? Etc…
Woops, sorry, Holmes, Dana, and Wilson are there…Good choices! Fun to think about those things…
CP
See, I include Steno but not Agricola. Yes, you could say both names and the audience would nod, but everything Agricola wrote about is superseded today whereas Steno’s principles continue to be fundamental to the geologic mind. Likewise with Werner versus Hutton. Werner and Agricola do not live on.
Must ad N. H. Darton for all the mapping he did to open the American West. I’d also support McPhee, and my wife thinks I should be on the list!
I certainly agree with adding William Smith. I’m surprised, and a little disappointed, that he was not included originally.
When I finally sat down to try to come up with my list of 25 “universally known names”, I was surprised at how hard it actually was. For quite a while I was stuck at around just 10 and then 15, and I was always afraid I was missing some really important ones, and including too many from my own favorite sub-fields of geology. I ended up with only 10 names common to my list and yours. Some names (about a half dozen), which I’m sure I would have made room for, simply hadn’t yet occurred to me. One or two, I’d thought of but wasn’t sure they should qualify for the list (example, Shoemaker). Some that I’d listed were predominately paleontologists, and I wasn’t sure if they belonged on the “geologists” list (Cope, Marsh). Some that I listed, I see that others commenting have also advocated belonging on the list (Murchison, Sedgewick, Powell). And, I will have to admit, one or two names on your list, I will have to look up because I truly have no idea who they are (top example = Broecker; and, is there a prominent Halley other than the one who had a comet named after him?). So much for my making any claim to be “well educated”, I guess! And, since the list of 25 was created by Andrew Alden, I was expecting it would contain one or more “famous California geologists” who might not be well known to the rest of us, but I don’t think I see any. And who’s Morgan, anyway—all I can think of is J.P. And I might argue to include Werner—even if he misinterpreted much of what he wrote about and taught. Thanks for a fun thought exercise.