Andrew Griscom
Oct. 12, 1928-June 21, 2015
Palo Alto, California

Andrew Griscom, 86, of Palo Alto, California, and Chatham, Massachusetts, died on Father's Day, June 21, 2015, of cancer.

A true Renaissance man and enthusiastic lifetime learner, Andy was born on Oct. 12, 1928, in Boston, to Ludlow Griscom, a famous ornithologist and naturalist, and Edith Sumner Sloan, a lifelong volunteer for the Grenfell Mission. He attended the Dexter School, Milton Academy (1945) and received a B.A. in geology from Harvard University (1949). After completing coursework at Tufts University, he then continued graduate work at Harvard, receiving a Ph.D. in geophysics for his thesis on the bedrock geology of Maine.

Raised in a privileged and intellectually active household in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his early childhood offered opportunities that encouraged his brilliant curiosity: music lessons at Longy School, Boston concerts and birding trips with his father. As a very young child, Andy read widely, both from his family's large library and from the old Chatham library. He taught his younger sister, Joan, to read when he was 4 and she was 3. Together, they discovered the two volume, "Through the Dark Continent" (1878) by H.M. Stanley, perhaps the inspiration for his later years of travel adventure with Shannon.

During childhood summers at Chatham, he explored low-tide life on Stage Harbor sand flats and, gathering and collecting shells, began a passion for science and a lifetime of collections. An accomplished sailor, in 1946 he was tactician for the crew of three boys who won the Sears Bowl, the National Junior Championship.

After Harvard, Andy was drafted into the Marine Corps, and commissioned as a second lieutenant, serving two years. Because of his high exam scores, he was recruited to teach at the Marine Basic School in Quantico, Virginia. Though never having seen battle, he found himself teaching side by side with experienced officers, years older. Many of his friends from Officers Candidate School were later killed in the Korean War.

Andy had a lifelong career at the U.S. Geological Survey, starting with a short stint in Washington, D.C. He then transferred to the USGS in Menlo Park, California, where he served until his retirement in 1996. As a student, and long before acceptance of the theory of continental drift, Andy was stimulated by the rapid development and confirmation of plate tectonics. Like many young scientists of his day, he was inspired to reassess past geological work in light of this new theory. At home and around the breakfast table, Andy energetically shared his enthusiasm by sketching three-dimensional drawings of plate boundaries and faults, sometimes using a piece of toast and his hands to explain the subduction of ocean crust beneath the continents. He was internationally respected for his research, using magnetism and gravity to reveal concealed geological structures, outline ore deposits, describe active fault zones, understand magma chambers and reconstruct ancient plate movements. His early work on the San Andreas Fault in Northern California still serves as a foundation for our understanding of earthquake hazards in California. One of his well-known publications on this subject has received 292 citations in the scientific literature. Andy's scientific expertise spanned the entire globe, with research projects in the Appalachian Mountains, Alaska, Oregon, Basin and Ranges, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Japan, Zanzibar and Saudi Arabia. An outstanding scientific writer, with a broad understanding of earth science, he mentored many younger scientists, and was often sought out by experienced colleagues for his expert advice. Andy's colleagues in government and academia will greatly miss his counsel, experience and remarkable contributions to earth science.

Andy was drawn to adventure and particularly loved mountaineering. When his parents offered him money to travel to Europe, he chose instead to join with friends for a first ascent of a remote peak in British Columbia in the Saint Elias Range (Devil's Paw). He was an active member of the Harvard Mountaineering Club, and worked during winter vacations as part of a rescue team on Mount Washington, giving him more time in the backcountry that he loved. He generously shared his love of the wilderness with family and friends, and made yearly group backpacking excursions into the wilds of the Sierras, Grand Canyon and Coast Ranges. On many of the trips, Andy would stop at interesting road cuts and eagerly share his interpretation of the rock record with anyone willing to listen, undaunted by his children's adolescent teasing. He often took his children on USGS trips on horseback, by truck or on foot to measure the subtle differences of the gravitational pull of the earth, data which he would later weave into a larger geologic narrative.

After retirement, Andy lived in Palo Alto and in Chatham. Cape Cod provided an abundance of subject matter for his photography: birds, Monomoy, lighthouses, horseshoe crabs, and stunning portraits of family and guests. An avid sailor, he passed his love of sailing on to his children and grandchildren, and the houses have regularly been filled to over-flowing with friends and family. Andy and his wife Shannon also traveled extensively to far-off corners of the world (Mali, Iran, Java, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Japan, Northern India, Galapagos, Cuba, Peru, Jordan, Syria, Italy, France, China), and would return with gifts, paintings and photographs that would serve as a journal to be shared and discussed with friends and family. The culture, politics and music of these distant lands became part of everyday discussion and analysis. In later years, Andy and Shannon served as a constant support for many grandchildren and tried to attend every important graduation, theater production, award ceremony or athletic event.

As an avid collector at an early age, he gathered books, coins, stereoscopic cards, postcards, Persian rugs, art, commemorative spoons, jewelry, information and a large number of friends. He was a life member of the Harvard Mountaineering Club, Geological Society of America, National Stereoscopic Association (past president and given a Meritorious Service award for his extraordinary contribution of time and effort), Stage Harbor Yacht Club (Chatham, Massachusetts). He was a scuba diver, served on the Board of the Peninsula School (Menlo Park, California) and supported many charities.

Andy is survived by his wife, Shannon Close Griscom; sisters, Edith R. Griscom and Joan Ludlow Griscom; two children, Andrew Pippin Griscom (Rocio Herbert) and Sarah Bailey Griscom (Craig Pennypacker); stepchildren, Bridget Bradley Gray (David), Brendan Bradley, Kiah Caldwell, David B. Caldwell, Lee Penrose (Kirsten), and Vicki Penrose; grandchildren (Sophie, Zoe, Bailey, Jaya, Andrew, Brendan, Eleanor, Cathleen, Gabriel, Sam F, Kelly, Nick, Emily, Ben, Molly, Caitlin and Sam C); and seven nieces and nephews from the Daley family, as well as surrogate daughter, Marian Lee Maclay. In its complexity, the "family bush" includes a great number of people from all over the world. Full of love and acceptance, he was forever trying to clear himself of his prejudices by living a thoughtful and open-minded life. He felt especially fortunate to have lived, traveled, cooked, argued and laughed for 30 years with Shannon, his great love.