Lawson, Andrew C.

Lawson, Andrew C. (Cowper)

(1861–1952) geologist; born in Anstruther, Scotland. He came to the U.S.A. to study at Johns Hopkins while concurrently serving the Geological Survey of Canada (1882–90), then became a professor at the University of California: Berkeley (1890–1928). He made major contributions to seismology and pre-Cambrian rock classification, then devoted his research to the relationship of isostasy to mountain and deep basin formation. He was privately a poet, a collector of paintings, and a designer of earthquake-proof buildings.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.