Alexander McKay (11 April 1841 – 8 July 1917) was a New Zealand

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

. He was born in Carsphairn,

Kirkcudbrightshire Kirkcudbrightshire ( ), or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative count ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

on 11 April 1841. McKay reached New Zealand in 1863 where he spent a number of years prospected for

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

. A meeting with

Julius von Haast Sir Johann Franz Julius von Haast (1 May 1822 – 16 August 1887) was a German-born New Zealand explorer, geologist, and founder of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. Early life Johann Franz Julius Haast was born on 1 May 1822 in Bo ...

saw a change of direction in which McKay, largely self-taught, undertook geological mapping and fossil collecting expeditions throughout the islands. In 1872

James Hector Sir James Hector (16 March 1834 – 6 November 1907) was a Scottish-New Zealand geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist. He went on to have a lengthy career as a government employe ...

appointed him to the Geological Survey of New Zealand.Cherry Lewis, Simon J. Knell (2009) "The Making of the Geological Society of London"
pp350
Geological Society of London. Retrieved February 2015 During his geological work McKay took numerous photographs. He invented a

telephoto lens A telephoto lens, in photography and cinematography, is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a ''telephoto ...

and also techniques for taking images of geological collections and fossils. McKay's greatest achievement was to free New Zealand sciences from the strictures of European-based thinking, developing new theories, of worldwide importance, on block faulting in the evolution of mountain systems. The discipline of

neotectonics Neotectonics, a subdiscipline of tectonics, is the study of the motions and deformations of Earth's crust ( geological and geomorphological processes) that are current or recent in geologic time. The term may also refer to the motions/deformations i ...

is largely based upon McKay's observations and theories.D.G. Bishop (2008)
The Real McKay
', Otago University Press, Retrieved February 2015

References

External links

* 1841 births 1917 deaths 20th-century New Zealand geologists Scottish emigrants to New Zealand {{geologist-stub