William Otis Crosby


William Otis Crosby - American geologist and engineer, Professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography

He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a bachelor's degree.
Since 1875, while still a student, he was an assistant in geology and mineralogy in the Boston Society of Natural History, where he worked under the guidance of the famous paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt.
After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was invited to the position of instructor at the same institute in the Department of Geology.
In 1881 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1883 he received the post of assistant and held this post until 1902. Then he worked as an assistant professor and professor of mineralogy and lithology until 1907, when progressive deafness led him to the need for resignation.
Head of the Department of Geology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In total, 54 years have been associated with this institute.
After the termination of teaching activity and until the end of his life, he worked as an expert consultant on the construction of engineering structures.
He died in Boston on December 31, 1925.

Scientific and engineering activities

Teaching at the Institute was combined with extensive scientific and engineering activities. The research covered such areas as mineralogy, igneous rocks, glaciology, physical geography, metamorphism, economic geology, fracture disturbance and tectonics, coral reefs, engineering geology and groundwater.
He gave one of the first classifications of fractured disturbance of rock massifs.
He advised projects in the United States, Alaska, Mexico and Spain. Among them such as Catskill Aqueduct, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Arrowrock Dam, La Boquilla Dam in Chihuahua and others.

Awards, recognition

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member of the Geological Society of America
Member of the Seismological Society of America
Member of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers
Member of the Boston Society of Natural History
Twice awarded by the Walker Award from the Boston Society of Natural History
Bronze medal of the Exposition Universelle.

Personal life

Wife - Alice Ballard Crosby, son of Irwin Ballard Crosby, geologist, scientist - continuer of the father's case.