geologist who proposed that sedimentary rocks (sedimentary rock) were produced by the action of rivers, winds, and ice (continental), as well as by marine sedimentation.

Barrell worked with the United States Geological Survey in 1901 in Montana, where he conducted studies of the Marysville mining district, near Helena. Concluding that a new theory for the granite batholiths (great masses of igneous rock) of that area was necessary, he presented his ideas in Geology of the Marysville Mining District, Montana (1907). In this classic work on geology he proposed the then new concept that molten magma from the Earth's interior infiltrated fissures in the crust and created intrusions, lavas, and metamorphism.

Before the publication of Barrell's papers on sedimentation, it was generally believed that almost all sedimentary strata were produced by oceans. A close study of the Triassic deposits (190,000,000 to 225,000,000 years old) of New Jersey and the Western deserts convinced Barrell that at least one-fifth of the land was covered by other types of sediments. In addition, he challenged the idea that the depth of sedimentary layers is directly related to the time necessary to produce them. In a pioneering work, “Strength of the Earth's Crust,” published in the Journal of Geology (vol. 22 and 23, 1914–15), Barrell presented his own views on isostasy (the equilibrium forces involved in balancing mountains and basins in the Earth's crust) and tried to explain many geologic phenomena by the interaction of two hypothetical crust layers.