Charles P. Berkey (1867–1955)

Charles Peter Berkey (March 25, 1867-April 22, 1955) was an American geologist, notable as a founder of the discipline of engineering geology, for his work on the great dams of the 1930s, and as chief geologist on the Gobi Desert expeditions in Mongolia led by Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1920s.

During the New York City's Board of Water Supply's Catskill Project's nearly two decades of construction, to the mid-1920s, Berkey became, in effect, the country's leading engineering geologist--although that term was not yet in use. Berkey was appointed by President Coolidge to the board tasked to approve the design of Hoover Dam. He was also an advisor to the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and reservoir and participated in the engineering geological assessments of the Holland and Lincoln tunnels in New York City, the foundations for the George Washington, Whitestone, and Triboro bridges, and, in the west, the Friant, Shasta, Bonneville, and Parker dams.

Berkey was Chief Geologist and Petrographer on the Central Asiatic Expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History, famously led by Roy Chapman Andrews in 1922, 1923, and 1925. Berkey's insistence that the expedition's photographer hike over some hills to record an unusual geological feature led instead to the latter's discovery of the field of fossils that included the famous fossil dinosaur eggs, a find for which Berkey, as a geologist, never claimed credit, later admitting that he "never thought too much about the eggs". His book, "The Geology of Mongolia" is still reprinted as a classic.

He served for many years as head of Columbia's geology department.