Charles Doolittle Walcott

Charles Doolittle Walcott ( born March 31, 1850 in New York Mills, Oneida County, New York, † February 9, 1927 in Washington, DC) was an American paleontologist who dealt in particular with fossils of the Cambrian.

Walcott started early with the collection of minerals, fossils and bird eggs. He left school at 18 without qualifications and made ​​his passion for fossils to the profession by acting with them. He met Louis Agassiz of Harvard University to know and turned through its influence on paleontology. First, he was assistant geologist of the State of New York, James Hall, and worked from 1879 in the United States Geological Survey. Walcott was from 1894 to 1907 director of the federal agency and then successor of Samuel Pierpont Langley as head ( Secretary ) of the Smithsonian Institution, a position he held until his death. After he had met Andrew Carnegie in 1902, he was a founder of the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

He discovered in 1909 the Burgess Shale, a locality of black shale of the Cambrian sediments in the vicinity of Fields (British Columbia, Canada), a famous fossil site. 1910-1924 he always returned there and collected more than 65,000 fossils. During his trips he was often supported by family members. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( which he was president in 1923 ) and the National Academy of Sciences (1896 ), the Mary Clark Thompson Medal he received in 1921. In 1909 he became an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

In 1872, he married Lura Ann Rust, the daughter of a farmer, on whose land he found ( Walcott -Rust quarry in Russia in New York, limestone of the upper Ordovician ) trilobites an important archaeological site. She died in 1876. In 1888 he married Helena Breese Stevens, with whom he had four children. She died in a railway accident 1911. 1914 he married Mary Morris Vaux, who emerged as a painter and accompanied him on his travels. Walcott is in the Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC buried.

Known to a wider audience Walcott was Stephen Jay Gould ( Wonderful Life, 1989).

A mountain summit on Mount Burgess in Canada is named after him. The National Academy of Sciences gives every five years, the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal for outstanding paleontological work on the Cambrian and Precambrian. In 1912 he was made an honorary member of the Paleontological Society.

Works

  • Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, 5 volumes, Smithsonian Institution, 1910-1928, Online: Volume 1
  • Geology of the Eureka District, Nevada, with an Atlas, U.S. Geological Survey Monographs, No. 20, 1884,
  • Paleontology of the Eureka District, Monographs of the U.S. Geological Survey, No.8, 1884, Online
  • Cambrians faunas of North America, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1884
  • The fauna of the Lower Cambrian or Olenellus zone, Washington DC 1890
  • Correlation papers on the Cambrian, Washington DC, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin, No. 81, 1890
  • Fossil Medusae, Monographs U.S. Geological Survey, No.30, 1898, Online
  • Cambrian Brachiopoda, Washington DC, Government Printinc Office, 2 volumes, 1912, Online
  • Cambrian fauna of India, Washington, D.C., 1905
  • Cambrian faunas of China, Proc. of the United States National Museum, Volume 30, 1905
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