Sloss, L. L. (Laurence Louis), 1913-

Laurence Louis Sloss was born in August 26, 1913 in Mountain View, California, the son of Joseph and Edith (Esberg) Sloss. In 1930 he entered Stanford University and received his Bachelor of Science, major subject geology in 1934. In fall 1934 Sloss enrolled for graduate school at the University of Chicago and received his Ph.D. in geology in 1937. His doctoral dissertation was published as "Devonian Rugose Corals from the Traverse Beds of Michigan," Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1939), pp. 52-73. On June 20, 1937 he married Berenice Loeb, later he re-married. With Marion Stone he had two sons, Laurence Joseph and Peter William. In 1937 Sloss accepted appointment to the Montana School of Mines at Butte, Montana. He stayed there for nine years: from 1937-1939 he was an instructor, from 1939-1943 an assistant professor, and from 1943-1946 an associate professor. At the same time he held a position as geologist with the Montana State Bureau of Mines and Geology, where he began to compile information on the distribution of sedimentary rocks. The results, published as "Devonian System in Central and Northwestern Montana," in the 1947 Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) (with Wilson M. Laird) won the AAPG President's Award as the best article of the year.

In 1947 Sloss joined the geology faculty at Northwestern University as lecturer. In 1948 Northwestern appointed Sloss assistant professor. As part of the "famous triumvirate" (William Krumbein, Edward Dapples, and Laurence Sloss) he continued his studies of sedimentary rocks. He broadened his research to the geological evolution of cratons and to stratigraphy and tectonics, the science and study of the sedimentary layers of the earth and the state of behavior of the earth's crust. Throughout his career at Northwestern Sloss also acted as a consulting geologist for the petroleum industry. Mostly during the summers he worked for Carter Oil, Phillips Oil, and other oil companies, and he went on extensive field trips with students, who worked on various industry-supported research projects.

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