Harry Eugene Wheeler (1907 – 26 January 1987) was an American

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 ...

and

stratigrapher Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrat ...

. Eric Cheney called him "the chief theoretical architect of sequence stratigraphy" Wheeler was a professor of geology at the University of Washington from 1948 until 1976.

Work on stratigraphy

Wheeler's work in the 1950 and 1960s was pivotal in the later development of

sequence stratigraphy Sequence stratigraphy is a branch of geology, specifically a branch of stratigraphy, that attempts to discern and understand historic geology through time by subdividing and linking sedimentary deposits into unconformity bounded units on a variety ...

, which is still used today, for example by

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...

geologists. His 1964 paper, ''Baselevel,

Lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust (geology), crust and the portion of the upper mantle (geology), mantle that behaves elastically on time sca ...

Surface, and Time-Stratigraphy''Wheeler, Harry E. (1964). Baselevel, Lithosphere Surface, and Time-Stratigraphy. ''Geological Society of America Bulletin'' 75 (7), p. 599-610. . evolved the concept of

base level In geology and geomorphology a base level is the lower limit for an erosion process. The modern term was introduced by John Wesley Powell in 1875. The term was subsequently appropriated by William Morris Davis who used it in his cycle of erosion ...

to emphasize the continuous spatial and temporal nature of stratigraphy, eventually giving rise to ''Wheeler diagrams'':

But what of stratigraphic discontinuities as manifestations of nondeposition and accompanying erosion? Here we pass into the realm of no less important but completely abstract, area-time framework, in which a discontinuity takes on 'area-time' configuration in the form of the lacuna, which in turn, consists of hiatus and degradation vacuity.

Wheeler diagrams

The Wheeler diagram is a spatio-temporal plot, showing the (usually one dimensional) spatial distribution of sedimentary

facies In geology, a facies ( , ; same pronunciation and spelling in the plural) is a body of rock with specified characteristics, which can be any observable attribute of rocks (such as their overall appearance, composition, or condition of formatio ...

through time in a two-dimensional chart. Three-dimensional seismic data allows the construction of three-dimensional Wheeler 'diagrams', but these are rare because of the difficulty of producing them.

References

20th-century American geologists 1907 births 1987 deaths People from Pipestone, Minnesota {{US-geologist-stub