Dr. David Elliott obtained a B.Sc. in Geology at McGill University in 1960, a Ph.D. at University of Glasgow in 1964, followed by lecturing and postdoctoral work at Imperial College London (1964-1967) and subsequently as Associate Professor, then Professor at Johns Hopkins University (1967-1982) where he supervised a dozen Ph.D. students before his untimely death at 44. He pioneered the use of isogons in structural analysis and began investigating processes of geological deformation, particularly finite strain and strain paths, in his postdoctoral work with John Ramsay, applying his innate mathematical ability to physical analysis of carefully collected field data. At Hopkins he began field work in the Appalachians that led him to investigate the geometry, motion, and energy balance of thrust sheets and then expanded his investigations to comparative studies of thrust belts including the Canadian Rockies, the Moine thrust zone, the Alps, and the Scandinavian Caledonides. This led him to pioneer and popularize many new geometrical techniques to understand the nature and development of thrust sheets. Dave introduced the concept of the balanced section to a wider audience and developed the technique so that it could be applied to cleaved and folded metamorphic rocks as well as carbonate and clastic rocks deformed at shallower depths.

---