Former Geology Prof. Robert B. Johnson Dies at Age 90

April 3, 2015

Robert Britten Johnson, who taught geology at DePauw University and headed the department in the 1960s, died March 28, 2015 in Fort Collins, Colorado.  He was 90 years old.

Born on September 24, 1924, in Cortland, New York, Johnson attended Wheaton College in Illinois until January 1943, when he voluntarily joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. After serving three years as a crew chief and aerial engineer in the Troop Carrier Command, he returned to Wheaton College as geology major. He transferred to Syracuse University where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1949. He remained at Syracuse for his master's degree in invertebrate paleontology, which he received in 1950. Johnson received a fellowship and earned a Ph.D. in exploration geophysics in 1954 from the University of Illinois.

His career in education began as assistant professor in the department of geology at Syracuse University. In 1955, he accepted a position as senior geologist with a consulting company in Urbana, Illinois. A year later he joined the faculty at Purdue University, where he was an associate professor in the engineering geology department of the School of Civil Engineering. While in West Lafayette, the professor pioneered the teaching of geology by closed-circuit television and was made full professor and head of the department.

In 1966, Johnson came to DePauw to head the department of geology.  A year later he headed west to Colorado State University, where he was offered a full professorship in the department of geology in the College of Natural Sciences. A year later he was named chairman of the department. He remained at CSU until his retirement in 1988. (at left: Johnson in 1966; from the DePauw University Archives)

Dr. Johnson spent many summers as regional geophysicist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. The professor also taught field geology in Rocky Mountain National Park for the Rocky Mountain Nature Association and led Elderhostel groups for the YMCA of the Rockies and for Colorado State University.

Johnson was chair of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Geological Society of America, and was a senior fellow of GSA. He served as chairman for six years of the Committee for Exploration and Classification of Earth Materials for the Transportation Research Board of the Academy of Sciences. He is the senior author of the text, Principles of Engineering Geology, which was recognized with the GSA's E. Burwell, Jr. Memorial Award and the Claire P. Holdridge Outstanding Publication Award in Engineering Geology from the Association of Engineering Geologists.

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