George Burr Richardson

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George Burr Richardson (August 21, 1872 – March 18, 1949) was an American geologist who did extensive field work for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Alaska, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, Colorado, and Utah. In Texas, he described and named 14 rock formations, which became the basis for later geologic work in northern and western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. His studies helped identify areas with important natural resources deep underground. He published about 70 geology papers.

Richardson was born in Morrisania, New York. He studied at the College of the City of New York and then the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, earning a BS magna cum laude in 1895. He started as a chemist but soon chose geology, inspired by Harvard professor Shaler. He began graduate work at Harvard in 1896 and worked with J.B. Woodworth and J.A. Taff. He earned an MS from Harvard and studied gold prospects in British Columbia in 1898. In 1899 he aided field work in South Dakota and then earned a PhD at Johns Hopkins in 1901, with a dissertation on the Red Beds of the Black Hills.

Richardson joined the USGS as Assistant Geologist on October 29, 1900. He worked in western Pennsylvania with Marius R. Campbell, mapping the Indiana quadrangle (about 235 square miles). He showed that the “Indiana anticline” is a syncline, and prepared the Indiana folio (published 1904) as part of the Geologic Atlas of the United States. He later produced maps and reports for five other nearby quadrangles (New Kensington, Somerset and Windber, Butler and Zellienople) published in the 1930s.

In California (1902) he helped map the Redding quadrangle. In Texas (1903–1904) he led a major project to study water from deep wells in El Paso and Reeves counties, covering about 9,000 square miles and rocks about 8,500 feet thick. The work was published as UT Mineral Survey Bulletin 9 in 1904, and he later prepared more detailed reports for El Paso and Van Horn (1909 and 1914).

Richardson’s work in Utah (1904–1907) began with underground water studies but shifted to coal lands after 1906. He did a detailed look at the Book Cliffs coal field and also studied coal, gas, and oil areas in Utah and nearby states.

From 1919 to 1932 he led petroleum and natural gas statistics for the USGS, and from 1920 to 1939 he supervised the preparation of oil and gas field maps for many states. This work required close cooperation with oil and gas operators. In 1939, he co-authored a chapter on “Petroleum Reserves” in Energy Resources and National Policy.

Personal life: Richardson married Irene Dashiell on June 23, 1904. They had one child, Alice, born September 20, 1913. Irene died January 10, 1949. George Burr Richardson died March 18, 1949, in Washington, D.C., and was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery. He was a member of All Souls Memorial Church, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the Geological Society of Washington, Phi Kappa Phi, the Cosmos Club, and the Chevy Chase Club.