RAPHAEL PUMPELLY (1837–1923): FIRST AMERICAN GEOLOGIST TO MAP IN JAPAN AND CHINA

During 1861–1862, Raphael Pumpelly was engaged by the Japanese Government to review its mineral resources and advise on mining operations. Political pressures against the government's employ of foreigners resulted in his investigations being confined to Yesso [Hokkaido] and, at the end of 1862, necessitated the termination of his contract. However, he completed a geological sketch-map of southern Yesso with structural cross-sections, provided formation descriptions, interpretations of landforms, suggestions for mine development, and interpretations of the tectonic history of the island. Rock ages were generally classed as: I. Older metamorphic, II. Pluto-neptunian [chiefly marine volcaniclastic], III. Recent, including the marine terrace deposits, and IV. Eruptive, of all ages. In China he described geology along the Yangtse River and mapped a wide region west of Beijing. He outlined historical changes of the course of the Yellow [Hwang Ho] River. His sketch of Chinese geology described basement metamorphic rocks unconformably overlain by widespread Devonian marine limestone and, in turn, by Triassic Coal Measures deposited subsequent to an orogenic ‘ Sinian revolution'. Widespread Pleistocene loess was interpreted as lacustrine. Remarking on the general parallelism of Asian mountain ranges, major valleys, coast lines, and the Japanese islands, he envisioned a NE-SW–trending system of tectonic elevation and depression that dictated the geomorphic configuration of the Northern Hemisphere worldwide, "one more link in the chain of evidence toward proving the subordination to harmonious laws of causes that have produced all the varied features in the configuration of our planet" (Pumpelly 1866, p. 68).