Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin

Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin 1843-1928, American geologist, b. Mattoon, Ill., grad. Beloit College, 1866. He was professor of geology at Beloit (1873-82), president of the Univ. of Wisconsin (1887-92), and professor of geology and director of the Walker Museum at the Univ. of Chicago (1892-1919). Chamberlin was chief geologist of the geological survey of Wisconsin (1873-82) and the founder (1893) of the Journal of Geology. While studying glaciation and climates in past geologic times he noted defects in the nebular hypothesis of Laplace that led him to formulate, with the American astronomer F. R. Moulton, the planetesimal hypothesis of the origin of the solar system . Chamberlin wrote The Geology of Wisconsin (1873-82), A Contribution to the Theory of Glacial Motion (1904), A General Treatise on Geology (with Rollin D. Salisbury, 1906), The Origin of the Earth (1916), and Two Solar Families (1928).

Chamberlin, Thomas Chrowder (1843–1928) Professor of geology at Chicago University and Head of the Glacial Division of the US Geological Survey, in which capacity he mapped the ice deposits of Wisconsin, Chamberlin developed a theory of successive episodes of mountain building, around an ancient continental craton. With Moulton, he proposed the planetismal hypothesis of the formation of the Earth.

Chamberlin, T. C. (1843–1928) The American educator and geologist Thomas Crowder Chamberlin was born in Illinois, graduated from Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1866, and returned to the college as professor of geology in 1873. In 1876 he became chief geologist in the state geological survey, but moved on again to be chief of the glacial geology division of the US Geological Survey. He had been able to study the glaciers of Switzerland in 1878. In 1894 he went to Greenland as geologist to the Peary relief expedition. At that time he was head of the department of geology at the University of Chicago, where he remained until he retired in 1919.

His early works concerned the geology of Wisconsin State and glacial geology, and he continued writing throughout his active life upon several important, even fundamental, themes in geology. His greatest contribution, however, was his planetesimal hypothesis of the origin of the planets. This suggested that a passing star drew the surface of the Sun into eruptions and raised great tidal bulges upon it. There followed the drawing out of two great curved arms of gaseous matter, like the solar prominences that are known today, but on a far greater scale. Most of the mass of these arms fell back on to the sun, but an appreciable quantity remained in orbit, gradually to condense from the gaseous state into small solid lumps, planetesimals. These in turn joined together by collisions, with the smaller gravitating to the larger, eventually to produce the planets. In time the space within the planetary orbits was swept clean. The idea of planetary accretion from cold matter was subsequently to be developed by several other geologists and cosmologists.

Later, many objections were raised to this hypothesis, but the principle of accretion has remained attractive. In the 1940s and 1950s several new hypotheses invoked condensation from a nebula, cloud, or disc of cold matter. All owed something to Chamberlin's original idea.

D. L. Dineley