George Ferdinand Becker

George Ferdinand Becker (born Jan. 5, 1847, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died April 20, 1919, Washington, D.C.) was a geologist who advanced the study of mining geology from physical, chemical, and mathematical approaches.

Becker showed a talent for the natural sciences, particularly botany and zoology, while still a schoolboy. While studying as an undergraduate at Harvard University, he continued field studies. After graduation from Harvard University in 1868, Becker did advanced work at Heidelberg, Ger., and earned a Ph.D. there in 1869. He became a correspondent for the New York Herald and covered the Franco-German War (1870–71) until he resumed his studies at the Royal School of Mines in Berlin.

In 1874 Becker became an instructor of mining and metallurgy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he met Clarence King, the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey. Becker obtained a position with the survey and began a study of mining districts on the West Coast. His best-known report from this work is Geology of the Comstock Lode and Washoe District (1882).

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Everything Earth

Becker’s main interest was the study of the Earth’s interior, and his theoretical work on this topic was presented in a series of important papers in the 1890s; his most important theoretical contribution was Finite Homogeneous Strain, Flow, and Rupture of Rocks (1893). He foresaw that such studies could not be prosecuted successfully without a great body of physical data on the rocks and minerals that compose the Earth, and thus he played a major role in the establishment of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. In 1896 Becker went to South Africa to study the gold and diamond fields, and in 1898–99 he served as geologist to the U.S. Army in the Philippines.