New Mexico Geological Society
Special Publication - 2
History of the New Mexico Geological Society 1947-1968

Stuart A. Northrop, 1969, 78 pages, NMGS.

The compilation of this history was not a self-imposed task. In an unguarded moment back in 1962, I accepted the commission at the request of the Executive Committee. Special Publication No. 2, A history of the New Mexico Geological Society, was announced as being in preparation in the list of Society publications in the 15th guidebook (1964). I cannot refrain from noting that this is by far the shortest span of history I have attempted to cover. Over many years of teaching historical geology, paleontology, and stratigraphy, the minerals, rocks, and fossils involved go back more than a billion years. Man's inquiries about these materials--the history of geology --started with the Greeks several centuries B. C. In my searching for early records of minerals in New Mexico, I have gone back to Spanish explorations of 1540 - -more than four centuries ago.i i In checking early discoveries of fossils in New Mexico, I found that written records began in 1841.31 In assembling the history of New Mexico earthquakes, I have gone back 113 years to 1855 (Northrop, 1947, p. 1268). The shortest span of history hitherto attempted has been that of the University of New Mexico Department of Geology, which began with Clarence Luther Herrick 71 years ago in 1897 (Northrop, 1966). Now we are considering a Society that is just 21 years old!

Table of Contents available for download (1.27 MB PDF requires Acrobat 7.0 or later)