The voyage of the ‘Guyot Stone’ from the Swiss Alps to Neuchâtel and Princeton

Abstract In 1890, former students of Arnold Guyot at the University Neuchàtel dedicated a ‘large glacial boulder from Neuchâtel’ to his memory, now in front Hall Princeton University. We established that this block originated with all certainty Upper Carboniferous conglomerates Salvan–Dorénaz Basin, relics which crop out Alps western Switzerland and eastern France. During Last Glacial Maximum, travelled lower Rhône Valley on back Pleistocene Glacier Neuchâtel where, later, it crossed Atlantic was transported Princeton. Guyot’s name is familiar geologists because term ‘guyot’, introduced 1946 by Harry Hess for ‘curious flat-topped peaks scattered over millions square miles Pacific basin’, many are known represent drowned carbonate platforms.