Roland Wilbur Brown (1893–1961) was an American

paleobotanist Paleobotany or palaeobotany, also known as paleophytology, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant fossils from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (pale ...

and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

Biography

Brown was born in 1893. In 1928, he was appointed as a geologist with the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

, where he remained until he retired in 1958. He also served as a

Research Associate Research associates are researchers (scholars and professionals) that usually have an advanced degree beyond a Bachelor's degree such as a master's degree or a PhD. In some universities/research institutes, such as Harvard/Harvard Medical Scho ...

in the Department of Geology of the

United States National Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

, starting from 1951 util his death in 1961. He studied

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

and

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

s from western North America. Roland Brown also was a linguistic scholar, and is widely known among taxonomists for his book, "Composition of Scientific Words",Brown, R. W. (1954) Composition of Scientific Words. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. originally published in 1927 under the title "Materials for Word-Study" and reprinted in 1954, 1965, 1978, and 1985 under the latter title.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Roland W. Paleobotanists 1893 births 1961 deaths American paleontologists 20th-century American geologists