Walter Hermann Bucher

Walter Hermann Bucher was a German-American geologist and paleontologist born March 12, 1888, in Akron, Ohio, to Swiss-German parents, who died February 17, 1965, in Houston, Texas, and who proposed a theory of the Earth pulsation regarding planetary development, working independently and concurrently with Mikhail Tetyaev; his early work focused on paleontological subjects including stromatolites, oolites and ripple marks, while his later research concentrated on deformation of the Earth crust and structural geology, particularly cryptovolcanic structures. He lectured at the University of Cincinnati from 1911 and held a professorship of geology there by 1924, served as president of the Ohio Academy of Sciences in 1935, joined the Columbia University faculty in 1940, served as president of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1946, president of the American Geophysical Union from 1950 to 1953, and president of the Geological Society of America in 1955. He won the Bownocker Medal in 1938, the William Bowie Medal and the Leopold von Buch Medal both in 1955, and received the Penrose Medal in 1960.