Frank Harris McLearn

Frank Harris McLearn

Frank Harris McLearn, palaeontologist (b at Halifax 27 Feb 1885; d at Ottawa 7 Oct 1964). Educated at Dalhousie and Yale, he served on the GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA from 1913 to 1952. His thesis on the Silurian fossils of Nova Scotia is accepted as definitive, but he is best known for his studies on the Mesozoic faunas of western Canada. Fieldwork in the Crowsnest Pass and along the Athabasca and Peace rivers enabled him to establish the stratigraphy and correlation of the Cretaceous and Triassic formations of those areas. He also contributed greatly to the palaeontological knowledge of Haida Gwaii, the plains of southern Saskatchewan and the Manitoba Escarpment. His correlations were fundamental to the development of petroleum geology in western Canada.