author
Johan August Udden
1859–1932
A Swedish-born geologist and teacher who helped shape early American sedimentology, he spent decades turning careful fieldwork into practical discoveries. His research and leadership in Texas were tied to the finding of the Big Lake oil field and to new ways of studying drill cuttings and sediment grains.
1 Audiobook
Fossil Ice Crystals: An Instance of the Practical Value of "Pure Science"
by Johan August Udden
About the author
Born in Sweden in 1859, he moved to the United States with his family as a small child and grew up in the Midwest. He studied at Augustana College, later taught there, and built a reputation as both an educator and a scientist with a gift for close observation.
His geological work is especially remembered for advances in sedimentology, including studies of grain size and the mechanical composition of sediments. After joining the University of Texas Mineral Survey in 1904, he became an important figure in the Bureau of Economic Geology, where his work with well cuttings helped make subsurface geology more useful in oil exploration.
He died in Austin, Texas, in 1932. Today he is remembered as a pioneering Swedish-American geologist whose teaching, research, and practical methods left a lasting mark on American geology.