{{Short description|American geologist (1882–1966)}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Adolph Knopf |image = KNOPF, ADOLPH LCCN2016859371.jpg |image_size = |caption = |birth_date = {{birth date|1882|12|2}} |birth_place = San Francisco, California, United States |death_date = {{death date and age|1966|11|23|1882|12|2}} |death_place = Palo Alto, California, United States |residence = |fields = Geology |workplaces = United States Geological Survey; Yale University; Stanford University |alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley |thesis_title= |thesis_url= |thesis_year= |doctoral_advisor = |academic_advisors = Andrew Lawson |doctoral_students = Aaron C. Waters |notable_students = |known_for = |awards = Penrose Medal <small>(1959)</small> |signature = <!--(filename only)--> |footnotes = }}
'''Adolph Knopf''' (December 2, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an American geologist. Educated at the University of California, Berkeley, he held professional appointments at the United States Geological Survey, Yale University, and Stanford University. He was primarily a petrologist and mineralogist, though later in his career contributed to geochronology. He performed much of his field work in the western United States, investigating mineral deposits in Alaska, the Boulder Batholith in Montana, and the Gold Country of California.
Knopf was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as president of the Geological Society of America in 1944 and received its Penrose Medal in 1959.<ref name="Eckel, Edwin 1982">Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 p., {{ISBN|0-8137-1155-X}}.</ref> His second wife, Eleanora Knopf, was a notable geologist and frequent collaborator.
==Early life==
Knopf was born December 2, 1882, in San Francisco, California, to German American immigrants. His father was a building contractor.<ref name=nas>{{Biographical Memoirs|knopf-adolph|Adolph Knopf}}</ref> He grew up with his family on a ranch near Woodside, California.<ref name=am>{{cite journal |first=Robert G. |last=Coleman |author-link=Robert Coleman (geologist) |title=Memorial of Adolph Knopf |journal=American Mineralogist |pages=567–76 |date=March–April 1968 |url=http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM53/AM53_536.pdf |access-date=March 21, 2014}}</ref>
==Career==
Knopf entered the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a student of petrology under Andrew Lawson. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mining geology in 1904 and a Master of Science degree in 1905. That same year he spent the first of six summers surveying the mineral deposits of Alaska for the United States Geological Survey (USGS). In 1906 he moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the USGS full-time. The Alaskan Division, of which Knopf was one of about a dozen members, was considered the best geologic group in the USGS at that time. Knopf's work on tin deposits in the Seward Peninsula became the basis of the dissertation for his Ph.D., which he received from Berkeley in 1909. In Alaska he also discovered the minerals hulsite and paigeite.<ref name=nas/><ref name=am/>
In 1911 Knopf was promoted from assistant geologist to geologist. Over the next nine years he undertook a series of field projects for the USGS, beginning with the mining district in Montana that includes the Boulder Batholith and continuing to other western states including Nevada and California. In the latter state he surveyed the Gold Country. After discovering that universities on the eastern seaboard were paying about double the USGS salaries, Knopf left the USGS for a teaching position, and a number of his colleagues followed suit. Knopf began at Yale University in January 1920. He encouraged students to work with the USGS as he had done; this helped mitigate the agency's brain drain following the departures.<ref name=nas/><ref name=am/>
Knopf began at Yale as an associate professor but was promoted to full professor in 1923. He was named the Silliman Professor of Geology in 1937 and a Sterling Professor in 1938.<ref name=nas/> He was director of graduate studies from 1933 until his retirement from Yale in 1951.<ref name=am/> Upon retiring he returned to his native Woodside, California, settling not far from his family's old ranch. There he accepted a visiting appointment at the Stanford University School of Earth Sciences, where he remained until his death in 1966.<ref name=nas/>
Knopf's field work continued through his Yale and Stanford appointments, again with a focus on western states. He continued his work in the Boulder Batholith and investigated intrusive igneous rock bodies in the Spanish Peaks in Colorado. He also contributed to the emerging field of geochronology, putting lower bounds of 2 billion years and later 4.5 billion years on the age of the Earth.<ref name=nas/>
Knopf was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1931. He was also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences<ref name=nas/> and of the Geological Society of America.<ref>{{cite journal |title=none|journal=Proceedings of the Geological Society of America for 1937 |date=June 1938 |page=67}}</ref> He was president of the Geological Society of America in 1944, and he received the Penrose Medal in 1959.<ref name="Eckel, Edwin 1982"/><ref name=nas/> In 1937 he was vice president of the Society of Economic Geologists.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.segweb.org/SEG/About_SEG/Officers_and_Councilors/SEG/_About_SEG/_Officers_and_Councilors/Previous_Presidents_and_Vice_Presidents.aspx |title=Previous Presidents and Vice Presidents |author=Society of Economic Geologists |access-date=March 21, 2014 |author-link=Society of Economic Geologists |archive-date=March 22, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140322000820/http://www.segweb.org/SEG/About_SEG/Officers_and_Councilors/SEG/_About_SEG/_Officers_and_Councilors/Previous_Presidents_and_Vice_Presidents.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Personal life== [[File:Eleanora Frances Bliss Knopf.jpg|thumb|right|Eleanora Knopf, geologist and second wife of Adolph Knopf.]]
In 1908 Knopf married Agnes Burchard Dillon. They had three daughters and one son,<ref name=nas/> though one of the daughters died in infancy. Agnes died in 1918 in that year's flu pandemic.<ref name=am/> In June 1920,<ref name=nas/> Knopf married fellow USGS geologist Eleanora Frances Bliss, who as Eleanora Knopf became a frequent collaborator and travel companion. When Adolph moved to Yale, which did not then hire women, Eleanora worked out of Adolph's office, teaching private classes and still accepting USGS assignments. When they moved to California, Stanford hired her as a research associate.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=Elizabeth H. |last=Oakes |title=Knopf, Eleanora Bliss |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of World Scientists |page=408 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2007 |isbn= 9781438118826 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uPRB-OED1bcC&pg=PA408}}</ref>
==Legacy==
Knopf died November 23, 1966, in Palo Alto, California.<ref name=am/> In his will he endowed a chaired professorship at Yale.<ref name=nas/> The sitting Adolph Knopf Professor of Petrology is Shun-ichiro Karato.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v36.n24/story7.html |publisher=Yale Bulletin & Calendar |title=Shun-ichiro Karato named the Adolph Knopf Professor |date=Apr 4, 2008 |access-date=March 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151218200312/http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v36.n24/story7.html |archive-date=December 18, 2015 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Adolph and Eleanora Knopf also endowed a graduate fellowship in petrology at Stanford.<ref name=nas/> Mount Adolph Knopf in Juneau Borough, Alaska is named after him.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://alaska.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,1,fid,1854175,n,mount%20adolph%20knopf.cfm |title=Mount Adolph Knopf (in Juneau Borough, AK)}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.mindat.org/min-1943.html Hulsite mineral data] * [http://www.mindat.org/min-27336.html Paigeite mineral data]
{{Presidents of the Geological Society of America}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knopf, Adolph}} Category:1882 births Category:1966 deaths Category:People from Woodside, California Category:American people of German descent Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:United States Geological Survey personnel Category:Yale University faculty Category:Stanford University faculty Category:20th-century American geologists Category:Petrologists Category:American mineralogists Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Penrose Medal winners Category:Fellows of the Geological Society of America Category:Yale Sterling Professors Category:Scientists from California Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of America