William Christian Krumbein (January 28, 1902 – August 18, 1979) was a notable geologist, after whom the Krumbein Medal of the International Association for Mathematical Geology (IAMG) was named. This medal was established at the 25th

International Geological Congress The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to global cooperation in the field of geology. As of 2023, it represents more than 1 million geoscientists around the world. About Fo ...

in Sydney, in 1976. Krumbein was a founding officer of the IAMG. Krumbein was born at Beaver Falls,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States, in January, 1902, and died on August 18, 1979. At his memorial service, it was said of Krumbein "that by constitutionally rejecting conventional wisdom, he continually pursued innovative methods, whereby the natural phenomena of geology could be expressed with mathematical rigor." The legacy left by Krumbein includes his ' Krumbein Scale', a system of measuring ' roundness' or '

sphericity Sphericity is a measure of how closely the shape of a physical object resembles that of a perfect sphere. For example, the sphericity of the ball (bearing), balls inside a ball bearing determines the quality (business), quality of the bearing, ...

' of particles and the Krumbein ''phi'' (φ) scale, a logarithmic scale used for evaluating

particle size Particle size is a notion introduced for comparing dimensions of solid particles ('' flecks''), liquid particles ('' droplets''), or gaseous particles ('' bubbles''). The notion of particle size applies to particles in colloids, in ecology, in ...

that is a modification to the older Wentworth scale.

Awards

1977, awarded the

William H. Twenhofel Medal The William H. Twenhofel Medal is the highest award given by the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM). It was instituted in memory of William H. Twenhofel and is awarded annually to a person for his or her "Outstanding Contributions to Sedimentary ...

by the

Society for Sedimentary Geology The Society for Sedimentary Geology is an international not-for-profit, scientific society based in the US state of Oklahoma. It is commonly referred to by its acronym SEPM, which refers to its former name, the Society of Economic Paleontologists a ...

Notable publications

W. C. Krumbein and F. J. Pettijohn, ''Manual of sedimentary petrography'', New York, Appleton-Century, 1938 W. C. Krumbein, ''Measurement and geological significance of shape and roundness of sedimentary particles.'' Journal of Sedimentary Research; August 1941; v. 11; no. 2; p. 64-72 W. C. Krumbein and L. L. Sloss, ''Stratigraphy and sedimentation'', San Francisco, W. H. Freeman, 1963 W.C. Krumbein and F.A. Graybill, ''An introduction to statistical models in geology'', New York, McGraw-Hill, 1965

External links

William Christian Krumbein Medal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krumbein, William 1902 births 1979 deaths 20th-century American geologists Fellows of the American Statistical Association