Dutton, Clarence Edward, 1841–1912, American geologist, b. Wallingford, Conn., grad. Yale, 1860. After service in the army during and after the Civil War, he was a member (1875–91) of the U.S. Geological Survey. Working chiefly in the Rocky Mts. region, he wrote several papers, including geological studies of the high plateaus of Utah (1879–80), the Tertiary history of the Grand Canyon district (1882), and an authoritative report (1890) on the Charleston earthquake of 1886. As head of the division of volcanic geology for the survey, he studied volcanism in Hawaii, California, and Oregon. Dutton originated the theory of isostasy (see continents), stating that the general equilibrium in the crust of the earth is maintained by the flow or yielding of the rock beneath it (now known as the mantle) under gravitational stress. His writings include Earthquakes in the Light of the New Seismology (1904).
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