American structural geologist who contributed much to the theory of mountain building through his studies of the geology of Pennsylvania.

At 21 Rogers was professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. In 1835 he became professor of geology and mineralogy at the University of Pennsylvania and, in the same year, chief of the New Jersey Geological Survey. One year later he was appointed head of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. Because of a lack of state appropriations, the Pennsylvania survey came to a halt in 1842. Unwilling to leave the work unfinished, Rogers continued the survey at his own expense until 1847, when he finished Report on Pennsylvania (1858), which included a general account of the geology of the United States and of the coalfields of North America and Great Britain. Rogers and his brother William Barton Rogers jointly published On the Physical Structure of the Appalachian Chain (1842), expressing their findings on the structure of the Appalachians. In 1857 Rogers became the first American to be appointed Regius professor of natural history at the University of Glasgow.