Gordon Rittenhouse (1910-1974)

by Francis Pettijohn

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Gordon Rittenhouse was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 5, 1910. His parents were Harry H. Rittenhouse, a practicing physician, and Lilias Wood Rittenhouse. Gordon married Myrtle Ludwig, also of Chicago, on June 17, 1933.They had two children, a son, Robert of Tucson, Arizona; and a daughter, Betsey (Mrs. Shelby G. Carr, Jr.) of Dallas, Texas. Gordon died February 5,1974, following a year of declining health. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter, five grandchildren, and an older brother.

During his earliest years Gordon lived with his parents in the Hyde Park area in the shadow of the University of Chicago, where he attended the public schools, graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1927 and eventually entering the University where his study of geology began. He received his bachelor's degree in 1932, a master's degree in 1933, and his Ph.D. in 1935. He was elected associate member of the local chapter of Sigma Xi in 1932 and a full member a year later. As an undergraduate, Gordon was a member of the swimming and water polo team, being its captain in his senior year. He also played golf, a game at which he became proficient and which provided lifelong enjoyment.

Gordon was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1944, a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 1946, and a member of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists in 1948. Gordon also belonged to the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, the Houston Geological Society, the Gulf Coast Association of Petroleum Geologists, and the International Association of Sedimentology.

Gordon's scientific career began while he was still a student in the geology department at the University of Chicago. In the summer of 1931, prior to the receipt of his bachelor's degree, and again in 1932, he joined field parties led by F. J. Pettijohn to the Sioux Lookout region of northwestern Ontario. These canoe trips into this wilderness area introduced him to two topics: first, the Pleistocene varved clays exposed on the shores of Wabigoon Lake and vicinity and second, the Archean sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the region-the two ends of the geologic column. The first became the subject of Gordon's Master's thesis and gave rise to the first two of his scientific papers. The second was the subject of his doctoral thesis - a study of the geology of the Savant lake area - a study made during the summers of 1933 and 1934. Robert M. Grogan, now Chief Geologist of Du Pont Company, was Gordon's field assistant in 1933.

The study of the varved Pleistocene lake clays carried out in the summer of 1931 led to the establishment of a 1,600-year varve chronology, the first of its kind in northwestern Ontario. The Savant Lake study, involving a thick sequence of sediments and volcanic flows of Archean age, was the first study of these rocks in any significant detail. The work embodied in both these theses is truly Gordon's own, done with minimal help from F. J. Pettijohn, his thesis advisor. This early work, done without any grant support, with no remuneration other than the joy of discovery, and under often adverse conditions-arduous canoe travel, sweaty portages, difficult bush traverses accompanied by hordes of black flies and mosquitoes, camping without benefit of air mattress, sleeping bag, Coleman stove, or the modern dehydrated foods tested the mettle of the field geologist. Gordon amply proved his worth.

Near the conclusion of his graduate studies at Chicago, Gordon took a leave of absence to study at the University of Minnesota under Professor Frank Grout, one of the great teachers of petrology of his time. Gordon's philosophy of geology reflects the Minnesota interlude and the influence of Grout. It was the subject of his AAPG Distinguished Lecture tour (1948), his papers in Tulsa Geological Society Digest (1948) and World Oil (1949), and his Presidential Address before the AAPG-SEPM (1959). It was Grout who taught his students that "the reading of the life history of a rock is a much higher accomplishment than to classify or describe" - the "new petrology" of C. P. Berkey of Columbia University. This is what Gordon meant by "interpretative petrology." It is well to remember that in the thirties petrology (in reality petrography) was little more than description and subdivision. Analysis and interpretation of thin sections of sedimentary rocks was not commonplace then as it is now. With the exception of Marcus Goldman of the U.S. Geological Survey, Paul Krynine at Pennsylvania State, and Pettijohn at Chicago, thin-section sedimentology was virtually unknown in the United States. Gordon, therefore, was truly a pioneer in this field. It is this "reading rock history" that Gordon passed on to his own students at the University of Cincinnati and practiced throughout his own professional career.

Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1935, Gordon was employed by the Soil Conservation Service, an agency of the United States government created during the depression years under the Roosevelt administration to cope with soil erosion and depletion - accelerated erosion due in part to ill-advised farming practices and also to the great drought of the thirties. Gordon was attached to the research arm and was given the task of designing and establishing a laboratory for analysis of alluvial sediments. He soon became involved, however, in field work, especially the measurement of the rate of gully erosion by use of concrete reference markers. He also studied the excessive alluvial sedimentation resulting from aggravated erosion and had a major part in establishing criteria for distinguishing such deposits from older sediments. He first recognized that abundant soil concretions served as a criterion of the older deposits where no buried topsoil was present.

From the studies in Mississippi, in the southeast Piedmont, and in the middle Rio Grande valley of New Mexico, there came the classic U.S. Department of Agriculture Technical Bulletin 695, "Some Principles of Accelerated Stream and Valley Sedimentation," published in 1940 and written by Gordon along with S. C. Happ and G. C. Dobson. 

Gordon participated in various other Soil Conservation Service projects, one of which involved a study of the sediment of the Rio Grande River in New Mexico, an effort to determine the probable source areas of the sediment carried by this stream. This sediment was threatening to shorten the useful life of the Elephant Butte reservoir. To this end, Gordon made extended assays of the heavy minerals in the sands carried, and he endeavored, from principles of mixing and dilution, to assess the relative importance of the several source areas as generators of sediment. From this study came the concept of "hydraulic equivalence" for comparing sand grains differing in density. In all, some sixteen papers or other publications came out of Gordon's work with the Soil Conservation Service.

In 1943 this research program became a casualty of World War II, and Gordon transferred to the Fuels Section of the U.S. Geological Survey. In this position he was stationed in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he was engaged in regional work on the Appalachian Basin Oil and Gas Project, working out the sources, distribution, correlation, paleogeography, and sedimentary history of the Paleozoic rocks for the purpose of outlining favorable areas for oil and gas exploration. Here he had full opportunity to apply sedimentary petrology. Minor petrographic features, such as grain roundness, are not inconsequential in the hands of a skilled petrographer, as Gordon demonstrated in 1946. Discrimination between otherwise similar sandstones becomes possible, as does delineation of petrographic provinces and depositional history. The study of the Greenbrier Formation (Mississippian) of West Virginia and Pennsylvania is a good illustration of the value of combining skilled petrology and subsurface stratigraphy to a given stratigraphic unit. This phase of Gordon's career yielded tangible results, which were embodied in those papers dealing with the various middle and later Paleozoic sandstones of the Appalachian Basin. His techniques of study were published in US Geological Survey Circular 22 and in the article "Subsurface Geologic Methods," Colorado School of Mines Quarterly, v. 44.

Perhaps it was his Survey experience that steered Gordon into petroleum geology. His work with the Fuels Section introduced him to the problems of subsurface geology, of sample and core logging, of sand-body geometry, and of stratigraphic traps. To these topics Rittenhouse brought his philosophy of "interpretative petrology."

At the end of the war, Gordon accepted an appointment as Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Cincinnati. Here he proved to be an exceptional teacher. His ability and success in teaching was not founded on his brilliance as a lecturer he was not a theatrical person. Instead, his influence and achievement grew out of his ability to impart to his students the necessity for careful observations, honest and objective appraisal of the facts, consideration of alternative hypotheses to explain them, and formulation of criteria to reach a definitive answer to the questions raised. He was able to pass on to his students the essence of the "new petrology" -the "reconstruction of the total history of the rock," to use Gordon's own words. Among his students were Tom Connolly, Jane Taylor, D. A. Beaudry, A. Gaither, and J. P. Manry.

Gordon retained his Geological Survey appointment on a part-time basis until 1947 when he resigned in order to become a consultant on sedimentation and sedimentary petrology. His "card" appeared frequently in the professional directory in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists until 1951 when he joined the Shell Oil Company, a connection he retained until forced by ill health to retire in the fall of 1973.

It was during the academic years (perhaps because his teaching required rethinking of his ideas about sedimentary geology) that Gordon embarked on his AAPG Distinguished Lecture tour and published several papers that made his philosophy of geology more explicit.

Gordon's career with Shell was the longest episode in his professional life-some twenty-two years in all. The first couple of years were spent as a consultant on special problems at Tulsa, then as senior geologist at Denver, and finally in 1956 as manager of the geological department at the Exploration and Research Division in Houston. In 1959 he gave up his administrative duties to become a consultant to the Exploration and Production Research arm of the company, and in 1968 he was named Consultant to the Head Office in Exploration, a position he held at the time of his retirement in 1973.

Although his administrative and other company duties somewhat restricted his output of scientific papers, Gordon continued to publish and to serve the profession in other ways. He was a member of the Research Committee of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists from 1957 to 1958. He was vice-president of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists in 1948, he was elected president in 1958, he served on its Council from 1959 to 1960, and he was elected to Honorary Membership in 1972. He was associate editor for the Geological Society of America from 1963 to 1970. He was a member of the Geological Domain Committee of the American Petroleum Institute from 1956 to 1964 and chairman of this committee from 1963 to 1964. He was a member of the Institute's Government Liaison Committee from 1965 onward. During his Shell employment, he contributed papers to several symposia sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists - one on the geometry of sandstone bodies in Atlantic City in 1961, and more recently one on stratigraphic oil and gas fields, which appeared as Memoir 16 in 1972. The latter is one of the most complete classifications of stratigraphic traps on record. Both these contributions dealt with the form and geometry of sandstone bodies.

During Gordon's Shell career, he became interested in oil-field brines, in diagenesis as it affected compaction and pore-space reduction of oil sands, and related problems. His last published papers dealt with these topics.

How does one sum up such a life as that of Gordon Rittenhouse? Perhaps if we were restricted to one word that would be integrity, a quality in short supply these days. Gordon made his way up the ladder during difficult times. He lost his father when he was still a student. He graduated in the depth of the Great Depression in the mid-thirties. His earliest contributions were made before the days of "big science" and he used his own head and hands instead of gadgets to get results. He was an early practitioner of the "new petrology." But most of all, he was a man one could trust. We shall sorely miss him, but we can be grateful for his friendship, for his willingness to share his knowledge, for his help, and for his contributions to science and to our profession. We are all the richer for these gifts and can truly celebrate his life.

Selected Bibliography Of Gordon Rittenhouse

1933 A suggested modification of the pipette method: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 3, p. 44-45.

1934 A laboratory study of an unusual series of varved clays from northern Ontario: Am. Jour. Sci., v. 28, p. 110-120.

1936 Geology of a portion of the Savant Lake area, Ontario: Jour. Geology, v. 44, p. 451-478.

1938 Recent erosion investigations and their geologic significance [abs.]: Geol. Soc. America Proc. 1937, p. 1908.

1938 Criteria used in recognizing modern fluvial sediments [abs.]: Washington Acad. Sci. Jour., v. 28, p. 414.

1939 The pipette method [of analyzing sediments] modified for mass production: Natl. Research Council Ann. Rept. 1938-39, App. B, Exhibit G, p. 88-102.

1939 Method of comparing heavy minerals in sedimentary deposits [abs.] : Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 50, p. 1930-193l.

1940 (and Happ, S. C., and Dobson, G. C.) Some principles of accelerated stream and valley sedimentation: U.S. Dept. Agriculture Tech. Bull. 695,134 p.

1940 Curves for determining probable errors in heavy mineral studies, in Trask, P. D., chm., Report of the Committee on Sedimentation: Natl. Research Council, Div. Geol. And Geog. Ann. Rept. 1939-40, App. D, Exhibit F, p. 97-10l.

1941 Size of sand as measured by sieving and microprojection [abs.]: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 52, p. 1930.

1942 (and Bertholf, W. E., Jr.) Gravity versus centrifuge separation of heavy minerals from sand: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 12, p. 85-89,126.

1942 Transportation and deposition of heavy minerals: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 54, p. 1725-1780.

1943 Measuring intercept sphericity of sand grains: Am. Jour. Sci., v. 241, p. 109-116.

1943 Relation of shape to the passage of grains through sieves: Ind. and Eng. Chemistry, analytical ed., v. 15, p. 153-155.

1943 Sedimentation near junction of Maquoketa and Mississippi Rivers [disc.]: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 13, p. 40-42.

1943 A visual method of estimating two-dimensional sphericity: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 13, p.79-8l.

1944 (and Thorp, E. M.) Heavy minerals in sediment-transportation studies: Am. Geophys. Union Trans., 24th Ann. Mtg., pt. 2, p. 524-530.

1944 (and Connaughton, M. P.) Errors of sampling sands for mechanical analysis: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 14, p. 20-25.

1944 Sources of modern sands in the middle Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico: Jour. Geology, v. 52, p. 145-183.

1944 Investigation of oil and gas sands in the Appalachian Basin: Producers Monthly, v. 8, p. 19-2l.

1945 Textural standard for sample log work: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 29, p.1195.

1946 Map showing distribution of several types of Berea sand in West Virginia, eastern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania: U.S. Geol. Survey Oil and Gas Inv. Prelim. Map 58.

1946 (and Cather, M. E.) The texture of Mississippian, Upper Devonian and Lower Pennsylvanian sandstones in the Appalachian Basin: U.S. Geol. Survey (Misc. Pub. on Min. Res.), 35 p.

1946 Grain roundness, a valuable geologic tool: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 30, p. 1192-1197.

1946 (and Cather, M. E.) The texture of Paleozoic sandstones in the Appalachian Basin: U.S. Geol. Survey (Misc. Pub. on Min. Res.), 13 p.

1948 Interpretative petrology of sedimentary rocks: Tulsa Geol. Soc. Digest, v. 16, p. 70-72.

1948 Analytical methods as applied in petrographic investigations of Appalachian Basin: U.S. Geol. Survey Circ. 22, 20 p.

1949 Early Silurian rocks of the northern Appalachian Basin: U.S. Geol. Survey Oil and Gas Inv. Prelim. Map 100.

1949 The distribution and thickness of the Queenston shale in the northern Appalachian Basin: Producers Monthly, v. 13, p. 29-30.

1949 Oil and gas possibilities in the early Silurian rocks of the northern Appalachian Basin, in Prospects for discovery of oil and gas beyond proven areas and from deeper horizons in the Appalachian Region (preprint): Am. Petroleum Inst., Div. of Prod., Paper 826-20-C(4), 8 p.

1949 Detrital mineralogy, in Subsurface geologic methods: Colorado School Mines Quart., v. 44, p. 87- 111.

1949 Interpretative petrology of sedimentary rocks: World Oil, v. 129, p. 61-62,64,66.

1949 Petrology and paleogeography of Greenbrier formation (W. Va.): Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 33, p. 1704-1730.

1949 Sedimentary facies in early Silurian rocks of northern Appalachian Basin [abs.]: Oil and Gas Jour., v. 47, p. 154.

1950 Red beds and the search for oil [abs.]: Oil and Gas Jour., v. 48, p. 123.

1959 There is a reason: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 43, p. 1500-1502.

1961 Problems and principles of sandstone-body classification, in Geometry of sandstone bodies - A symposium, 45th Ann. Mtg., Atlantic City, N.J. 1960: Tulsa, Okla., Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists, p. 3-12; and Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull [abs.], v. 44, p. 1256.

1964 Possible mechanism for concentration of brines in subsurface formations [disc.]: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 48, p. 234-236.

1967 Bromine in oil-field waters and its use in determining possibilities of origin of these waters: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 51, p. 2430-2440.

1969 (and others) Minor elements in oil-field waters, in Geochemistry of subsurface brines: Chem. Geology, v. 4, p. 189-209.

1971 Pore-space reduction by solution and cementation: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 55, p. 80-91.

1971 Mechanical compaction of sands containing different percentages of ductile grains: A theoretical approach: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 55 , p. 92-96.

1971 Stratigraphic trap classification [abs.]: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 55, p.360.

1971 Sediment measurement techniques: C. Accelerated valley deposits [disc.]: Am. Soc. Civil Engineers Proc., Jour. Hydraulics Div., Paper 8012, p. 596-597.

1972 Cross-bedding dip as a measure of sandstone compaction: Jour. Sed. Petrology, v. 42, p. 682-683.

1972 Stratigraphic trap classification, in Stratigraphic oil and gas fields; classification, exploration methods and case histories: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Mem. No. 16, p. 14-28.

1973 Pore-space reduction in sandstones; controlling factors and some engineering implications: Offshore Tech. Conf., Prepr. No.5, v. 1, p. 683-688.

I wish to express my gratitude to W. Gibson and S. C. Happ for furnishing much information for this memorial.