Chester Stock

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Chester Stock
UCMP Paleontology 1915.jpg
Stock seated (front, second from right) with John C. Merriam (with hat) and others c. 1915
Born28 January 1892 Edit this on Wikidata
San Francisco Edit this on Wikidata
Died7 December 1950 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 58)
Alma mater
Employer
Awards

Chester Stock (28 January 1892 – 7 December 1950) was an American paleontologist who was a specialist on the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Stock was born in San Francisco to German immigrants, John Englebert Stock and Maria Henriette Meyer. He grew up in a poor neighborhood, selling newspapers to earn some money as a boy, and was educated at Starr King Primary School, Franklin Grammar School and on weekends he went to gymnasium where he learned German. He also went to the Lutheran Church where he took an interest in playing the tuba. He took an interest in science, going to the annual mechanics fair and the museum of the California Academy of Sciences. Their home was destroyed in the great fire of 1906 and he joined the California National Guard. He was forced by the circumstances to leave school and seek work in the Union Iron Works. His health declined and he came down with malaria after which his mother and brother pushed him back to studies and he graduated in 1910 from Mission High School. He then joined the University of California, Berkeley with the intent to study medicine. Influenced by John C. Merriam, he took an interest in paleontology and he went on to make a study of the remains of the Rancho La Brea for his graduation. He graduated in 1914 and continued studies under Merriam. He collected in the Hawker Cave for his PhD dissertation of 1918. He joined the university as an instructor and when Merriam moved to Washington in 1921, Stock taught vertebrate paleontology.[1] The newly founded California Institute of Technology was being expanded by R.A. Millikan who recruited and Chester Stock for the geology department. Stock worked there until his death.[2] The plesiosaur Morenosaurus stocki, a flamingo ,[3] and a fossil bat Desmodus stocki are among the species that have been named after him.[4][5]

Chester married Clara Margaret Doud in 1921. They had a son and a daughter. After her death in 1934 he married Margaret Gardner Wood in 1935 and they had a son.

References[]

  1. ^ Stock, Chester (1935). "Exiled Elephants of the Channel Islands, California". The Scientific Monthly. 41 (3): 205–214. ISSN 0096-3771.
  2. ^ Simpson, George Gaylord (1952). "Chester Stock 1892-1950" (PDF). National Academy Biographical Memoirs. 27: 335–362.
  3. ^ Miller, Loye (1944). "A Pliocene Flamingo from Mexico" (PDF). The Wilson Bulletin. 56 (2): 77–82. ISSN 0043-5643.
  4. ^ Hilton, Richard (2003). Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California. University of California Press. doi:10.1525/9780520928459-009. ISBN 978-0-520-92845-9.
  5. ^ Jones, J.K., Jr. (1958). "Pleistocene bats from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico". University of Kansas publications, Museum of Natural History. 9 (14): 389–396.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links[]

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