Francis J. Pettijohn

Francis John Pettijohn (1904 to 1999) was an American geologist who served for many years on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota based on a study of the Precambrian sedimentology and structure of an area around Abram Lake, Ontario, took a position at the University of Chicago in 1929 and became a full professor there in 1949. In 1943 he published an important work on Archaean sedimentation. In 1952 he moved to Johns Hopkins University, where he remained until his retirement in 1973. He received the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1975, and his other awards include the Twenhofel Medal of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London and the Sorby Medal of the International Association of Sedimentologists. His books include Paleocurrents and Basin Analysis, Sand and Sandstone, Sedimentary Rocks and a memoir, Memoirs of an Unrepentant Field Geologist.