Frank Dawson Adams
| Frank Dawson Adams | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 17, 1859 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | December 26, 1942 (aged 83) Montreal, Quebec |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Awards |
Lyell Medal (1906) Flavelle Medal (1937) Wollaston Medal (1939) |
Frank Dawson Adams FRS FRSC (September 17, 1859 – December 26, 1942) was a Canadian geologist.
Frank Dawson Adams was born into a prosperous, middle-class family in Montreal, Quebec. Adams attended the Montreal High School, a private school founded in 1843, and after 1852, closely associated with McGill University. As a pupil there, Adams received a classical education, and his knowledge of Latin was valuable later in life in his historical studies. At the age of sixteen he entered the Applied Science Program at McGill University, where he studied geology with John William Dawson (Principal of McGill since 1852) and Bernard Harrington (who had set up the Applied Science program). In unpublished notes he described Harrington as "the professor who influenced me chiefly."
He graduated with first class honors in Applied Science in 1878, then spent a year at the Yale Scientific School, where he studied German, French, and mineralogy. It was there that he met George Wessel Hawes (1848-1882) a pioneer American petrologist, who had worked with Harry Rosenbusch in Germany. He also met a fellow-student, Andrew Cowper Lawson, and in 1888 they published a joint paper on their investigation of the mineral scapolite. Returning to Montreal, he was appointed Assistant Chemist at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), and the following year (when the GSC moved to Ottawa), Assistant Chemist and Petrographer. He received a leave of absence to spend at least part of two years in Heidelberg, studying with Harry Rosenbusch, who by that time was the acknowledged master of microscopic petrography of igneous rocks. Rosenbusch attracted students from many different countries. While Adams was in Heidelberg he met G.H. Williams and J.S. Diller, both of whom later became leading American petrologists, as well as Victor Goldschmidt and (Carl) Alfred Osann (1859–1923), who became famous geochemists in Europe. In 1883, Adams published the first work in Canada that made full use of the petrographic microscope, as well as a paper indicating that he had already begun the field work north of Montreal, that later became the basis of his doctorate at Heidelberg. He received a master's degree from McGill in 1884, and his Ph.D. from Heidelberg University in 1892. His doctoral studies on the Morin anorthosite showed that these rocks were not metamorphosed sediments, as thought previously, but were igneous rocks that had been intruded into Grenville sediments and later metamorphosed in the Grenville orogeny.
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