Clarence Edward Dutton

Clarence Edward Dutton 1841-1912, American geologist, b. Wallingford, Conn., grad. Yale, 1860. After service in the army during and after the Civil War, he was a member (1875-91) of the U.S. Geological Survey. Working chiefly in the Rocky Mts. region, he wrote several papers, including geological studies of the high plateaus of Utah (1879-80), the Tertiary history of the Grand Canyon district (1882), and an authoritative report (1890) on the Charleston earthquake of 1886. As head of the division of volcanic geology for the survey, he studied volcanism in Hawaii, California, and Oregon. Dutton originated the theory of isostasy (see continents ), stating that the general equilibrium in the crust of the earth is maintained by the flow or yielding of the rock beneath it (now known as the mantle) under gravitational stress. His writings include Earthquakes in the Light of the New Seismology (1904).

Dutton, Clarence Edward (1841–1912) An officer in the US Army, Dutton was seconded to the US Geological Survey. He introduced the term ‘isostasy’, a concept for which he saw evidence in the Colorado plateau. Interested also in volcanology and seismology, he investigated the Charleston (USA) earthquake of 1886, and in 1904 published a textbook on seismology.

Dutton, Clarence Edward (1841–1912) One of the first geophysicists in the United States, C. E. Dutton was educated at Yale University and served in Union Army during the American Civil War. In 1875, he began a ten-year study of the great plateau region of the southern-western United States, first as a member of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, under the directorship of J. W. Powell, then, after 1879, as a member of the United States Geological Survey.

His studies of the high plateau of Utah and the geological history of the Grand Canyon district led Dutton to ponder the causes of elevations and subsidences of restricted areas of the Earth's crust. He reasoned that unloading of the land by erosion and loading of the sea floor by deposition of sediment must result in a force that tends to push the loaded sea bottom inward on the unloaded land. For this counterbalance between depression and elevation, Dutton invented the term isostasy.

Dutton subsequently studied volcanoes in Hawaii, Oregon, and California. From its similarity to the calderas of Hawaiian volcanoes, he recognized the caldera origin of Crater Lake in Oregon. After his studies of the earthquake of 31 August 1886 that devastated Charleston, South Carolina, Dutton devised new methods of calculating the depth of earthquake foci and for ascertaining the velocities of propagation of earthquake waves.

Brian J. Skinner