Hidden Bibliographic Details
| Varying Form of Title: | Chamberlin, Thomas Chrowder, papers
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| Notes: | The collection is open for research.
Thomas Chamberlin's education and early career coincided with an extremely important period in American geology, both in terms of knowledge and institutional structure. The expansion of mining, the discovery of North American dinosaurs, and the mapping of glaciers provided new opportunities for study. At universities geology was increasingly recognized as a discipline separate from geography and requiring its own department. The developing field was fostered by national organizations such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS, founded 1879) and the Geological Society of America (founded 1888). Chamberlin conducted his first research on glaciers and glacial movement. He was variously State Geologist of Wisconsin (1876 -1882), chief of the USGS Glacial Division (1881-1904) and geologist to the Peary Expedition in Greenland (1894). His work in Wisconsin articulated some of the basic laws of glacier movement and glacial stages, still accepted by geologists. His study of the multiple stages of glaciation informed his interest in climate change and the future habitability of the earth. In 1892 Chamberlin left Wisconsin to chair the Department of Geology at the University of Chicago. He founded the Journal of Geology there in 1893. He was also active as a research associate of the Carnegie Foundation and president of the Chicago Academy of Science. During the second part of his career his research was concerned with the origins and formation of the earth, and through his collaboration with astronomer Forest Ray Moulton advanced the "Chamberlin-Moulton Planetesimal Hyposthesis" in 1904-1905. This theory of the solar system posited that planets had formed from the collision of planetesimals, or debris ejected from the sun. Though extremely influential at the time, the Planetesimal Hypothesis was disproven during the 1940s. He received geology's highest honor, the Penrose Medal in 1926. A lunar crater and a crater on Mars are named for him.
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| Summary: | Consists of papers including biographies, clippings, personal and professional correspondence, drafts, research notes, reprints, and teaching materials.
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| Cite as: | When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Chamberlin, Thomas Chrowder. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
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| Cumulative Index / Finding Aids Note: | Finding aid available in the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, 1100 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
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