Clarence Edward Dutton ( May 15 , 1841 &ndash; January 4 , 1912 ) was an American geologist and US Army officer . Dutton was born in Wallingford , Connecticut on May 15 , 1841 . He graduated from Yale College in 1860 and took postgraduate courses there until 1862 , when he enlisted in the 21st Connecticut Volunteer Infantry ; he fought at Fredericksburg , Suffolk , Nashville and Petersburg . In 1875 , he began work as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey . Working chiefly in the Colorado Plateau region , he wrote several classic papers , including geological studies of the high plateaus of Utah ( 1879 – 80 ) , the Cenozoic history of the Grand Canyon district ( 1882 ) , and the Charleston , South Carolina , earthquake of 1886 . As head of the division of volcanic geology at the USGS , he studied volcanism in Hawaii , California , and Oregon ; his studies of basaltic lava flows in Hawaii led him to introduce the native Hawaiian language terms " ʻaʻā " and " pāhoehoe " for cool , clinkery lava flows and smooth , billowy lava flows respectively . He helped coordinate the scientific response to a large earthquake in the Mexican state of Sonora in 1887 . He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1884
a large earthquake
1887 Sonora earthquake
Clarence Dutton