American geologist and volcanologist
Dallas Lynn Peck (March 28, 1929 – August 21, 2005) was an American geologist and volcanologist. Peck was a native of Cheney, Washington. He received his bachelor's (1951) and master's (1953) degrees in geology from the California Institute of Technology. He received a doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1960.
Life.
Dr. Peck graduated from the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1960). He was born March 28, 1929, in Cheney, WA. Dr. Peck had resided in Virginia.
He spent his early career studying the volcanoes and volcanic rocks of Hawaii and the western United States. In the mid-1960s, he helped train U.S. astronauts on what to expect on the lunar landscape. He also was among the first U.S. scientists to work with the Soviet Union and China in cooperative earthquake research in the 1970s.
Throughout his career, he was an adviser to the National Science Foundation, a member of the National Research Council, and representative to the Third General Meeting of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Sciences Program. His memberships included the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union and the Cosmos Club.
Peck died on August 21, 2005, at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, of complications from open-heart surgery in June 2005.
USGS career.
Dallas Peck was an authority on volcanoes who served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1981 to 1993. He spent his entire career at the U.S. Geological Survey, starting in 1951. Peck worked in California and Hawaii before moving to the Washington, D.C., area in 1966. He was chief of the geologic division from 1977 until he was appointed director of the survey. During his tenure, he expanded the scope of the survey's work on mineral resources, global change, water quality and mapping.
Following his term as Director, he returned to the Geologic Division of USGS in 1993 to conduct research on the granites of Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada and to serve as adviser in the Office of the Chief Geologist. In 1995 he retired from the USGS, but continued his research as an emeritus scientist until his death.