Andrew Cowper Lawson (July 25, 1861 – June 16, 1952) was a Scots-Canadian geologist who became professor of geology at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He was the editor and co-author of the 1908 report on the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...

which became known as the "Lawson Report". He was also the first person to identify and name the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal) ...

in 1895, and after the 1906 quake, the first to delineate the entire length of the San Andreas Fault which previously had been noted only in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. He also named the Franciscan Complex after the Franciscan Order of the Catholic church whose missions used conscripted Native American labor to mine limestone in these areas.

Biography

Lawson was born on July 25, 1861, in Anstruther, Scotland. He moved to

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of ...

, Canada with his parents at age six. In 1883, he received his B.A. degree in natural science from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

. He worked for the

Geological Survey of Canada The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; french: Commission géologique du Canada (CGC)) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country, developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the e ...

while pursuing his graduate degrees. He received his M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1885, and his Ph.D. from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

in 1888. In 1890, he left the Geological Survey of Canada to work as a consulting geologist in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

. In October of the same year, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Mineralogy and Geology at the University of California in Berkeley. He became a full professor in 1892, and a Professor Emeritus from 1928 to his death on June 16, 1952. Lawson was president of the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitch ...

in 1926.Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America – Life History of a Learned Society. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 pp.. He was a consulting geologist for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s. His home in the La Loma Park area of the Berkeley Hills in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, now called the "Lawson House", was especially designed for him by noted architect Bernard Maybeck to withstand earthquakes. The house is an officially designated local landmark. The mineral Lawsonite is named for him, as is the Lawson Adit, originally a mining construction research tunnel on UC Berkeley's campus. During the Cold War, it was used to house special equipment to monitor Soviet nuclear tests. It is currently used to house seismological instruments. Lawson Hill (elev. 1,128 feet), located west of the

Briones Hills The Briones Hills form a low mountain range in western Contra Costa County, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States. Geography The hills are in the Southern Inner Coast Ranges group of the California C ...

Contra Costa County, California ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

, is named for him.

References

* ''The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission'', Andrew C. Lawson, chairman, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 87, 2 vols. (1908) – Available online a
this USGS webpage

External links

*
UC Berkeley – Lawson Biography

Guide to the Andrew C. Lawson Papers
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

The Lawson House

Exploratorium
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawson, Andrew Cowper 1861 births 1952 deaths Scottish geologists Scottish emigrants to Canada Canadian emigrants to the United States Geological Survey of Canada personnel Johns Hopkins University alumni University of Toronto alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Penrose Medal winners People from Anstruther Writers from Berkeley, California Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area 1906 San Francisco earthquake Presidents of the Geological Society of America Golden Gate Bridge