Clarence Dutton

Clarence Dutton
Clarence Dutton
Born	May 15, 1841 Wallingford, Connecticut
Died	January 4, 1912 (aged 70) Englewood, New Jersey
Nationality	United States
Fields	Geologist
Alma mater	Yale College
Known for	Isostasy, Grand Canyon geology

Clarence Edward Dutton (May 15, 1841 – January 4, 1912) was an American geologist and US Army officer. Dutton was born in Wallingford, Connecticut on May 15, 1841. He graduated from Yale College in 1860 and took postgraduate courses there until 1862, when he enlisted in the 21st Connecticut Volunteer Infantry; he fought at Fredericksburg, Suffolk, Nashville and Petersburg.

In 1875 he began work as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Working chiefly in the Colorado Plateau region, he wrote several classic papers, including geological studies of the high plateaus of Utah (1879–80), the Cenozoic history of the Grand Canyon district (1882), and the Charleston, SC earthquake of 1886. As head of the division of volcanic geology at the USGS, he studied volcanism in Hawaii, California, and Oregon; his studies of basaltic lava flows in Hawaii led him to introduce the native Hawaiian language terms "ʻaʻā" and "pāhoehoe" for cool, clinkery lava flows and smooth, billowy lava flows respectively. He helped coordinate the scientific response to a large earthquake in the Mexican state of Sonora in 1887. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1884.