Question: Who was an American writer responsible for a dissertation concerning  the towns and districts built near sediment formations around Lake Superior?
Context: The Western Great Lakes forests, in large part, lie in the northwestern Great Lakes Basin near the shores of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, including the entire Upper peninsula of Michigan and large parts of Northern Wisconsin, around Lake Superior into much of northern Minnesota and a smaller section into Canada.  In the west, the ecoregion surrounds the lakes and rivers that divide Minnesota from Ontario, including Lake of the woods and Rainy River, and it extends near the Winnipeg River into southeastern Manitoba The Ashland/Northern States Power Lakefront Superfund site is a contaminated region of the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Superior that is being studied for remediation by Northern States Power Wisconsin (NSPW), as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR).  This site has held a manufactured gas plant from 1845 to 1947, as well as lumber manufacturing and treatment mills for four decades at the start of the 20th century, railcar loading facilities, and a municipal landfill.  Additionally, a wastewater treatment plant is located on the premises, but is not in operation.  Contamination of the site is currently believed to have been caused by all the parties mentioned above, or former owners of the property whose companies are no longer in business.  The area is listed as a Superfund site by the EPA under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).  Releases of hazardous substances occurred onshore and migrated into sediment in Chequamagon Bay on Lake Superior. Paul Henry Landis, (5 March 1901 – 30 August 1985) was an American sociologist.  A prolific writer of over 20 books and 100 journal articles, Landis’s work spanned the fields of rural sociology, Natural Resource Sociology, Sociology of Education, Adolescence, Social Control, and many other topics.  Born in Cuba, Illinois, Landis was raised in a fundamentalist religious upbringing, before attending Greenville College and eventually the University of Michigan for a Masters Degree and The University of Minnesota for a PhD.  After graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1931, Landis joined the faculty of South Dakota State University (then called South Dakota State College) as an assistant professor in the Department of Rural Sociology.  His PhD dissertation on Minnesota's Iron Range was published as the book "Three Iron Mining Towns: a study in cultural change", now considered a landmark in Natural Resource Sociology.  In 1935 he joined the faculty of the Washington State University (at the time called the State College of Washington), eventually becoming the official State Professor of Sociology, as well eventually Dean of the Graduate School at Washington State.  Landis was elected and served as President of the Rural Sociological Society from 1945-1946. Iron Range refers collectively or individually to a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada.  Despite the word "range," the iron ranges are not mountain chains, but outcrops of Precambrian sedimentary formations containing high percentages of iron.  These cherty iron ore deposits are Precambrian in age for the Vermilion Range, while middle Precambrian in age for the Mesabi and Cuyuna Ranges, all in Minnesota.  Similarly, the Gogebic Range in Wisconsin and the Marquette Iron Range and Menominee Range in Michigan.  Natural ores and concentrates were produced from 1848 until the mid 1950s, when taconites and jaspers were concentrated and pelletized started to become the major source of iron production. The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) or Keweenawan Rift is a 2000 km long geological rift in the center of the North American continent and south-central part of the North American plate.  It formed when the continent's core, the North American craton, began to split apart during the Mesoproterozoic era of the Precambrian, about 1.1 billion years ago.  The rift failed, leaving behind thick layers of rock that are exposed in its northern reaches, but buried beneath later sedimentary formations along most of its western and eastern arms.  Those arms meet at Lake Superior, which is contained within the rift valley.  The lake's north shore in Ontario and Minnesota defines the northern arc of the rift.  From the lake, the rift's eastern arm trends south to central lower Michigan.  The western arm runs from Lake Superior southwest through portions of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska to northeastern Kansas. The Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe: Gichigamiwininiwag) were a large historical band of Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) Indians living around Lake Superior; this territory is considered part of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States.  They migrated into the area by the seventeenth century, encroaching on the Eastern Dakota people who historically occupied the area.  The Ojibwe defeated the Eastern Dakota and had their last battle in 1745, after which the Dakota Sioux migrated west into the Great Plains.  While sharing a common culture and Anishinaabe language, this group of Ojibwe was highly decentralized, with at least twelve independent bands in this region. The Fond du Lac Indian Reservation (or Nah-Gah-Chi-Wa-Nong ("Nagaajiwanaang" in the Double Vowel orthography), meaning "Where the current is blocked" in the Ojibwe language) is an Indian reservation in northern Minnesota near Cloquet in Carlton and Saint Louis counties.  Off-reservation holdings are located across the state in Douglas County, in the northwest corner of Wisconsin.  The total land area of these tribal lands is 153.8375 sqmi .  It is the land-base for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.  Before the establishment of this reservation, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were located at the head of Lake Superior, closer to the mouth of the Saint Louis River, where Duluth has developed. Brule Glacial Spillway is a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources-designated State Natural Area that encompasses the valley of the upper reaches of the Bois Brule River.  This valley was carved by the outlet of Glacial Lake Duluth, which occupied what is now the western portion of Lake Superior, during the retreat of the Superior lobe of Wisconsin glaciation.  This outlet flowed southwestward through the valley, to what is now the St. Croix River.  As the glacier melted, and the level of Lake Superior dropped, the direction of flow shifted to its present northeastward course, towards Lake Superior.  A high point in a vast bog near Solon Springs marks the divide between the watersheds of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.  This divide was used for thousands of years, by Native Americans, European explorers, fur traders, and settlers as a portage between the two watersheds. The Bayfield Peninsula is a peninsula on Lake Superior.  It is located in Bayfield County, Wisconsin USA.  It is the northernmost region of mainland Wisconsin, with the south shore of Lake Superior to the west and the Chequamegon Bay to the east.  The peninsula is part of the Lake Superior Lowland, though the interior southeast of Cornucopia and west of Bayfield has some higher ground including Pratt's Peak, Bayfield County's second-highest point.  Highway 13 runs around the peninsula along the Superior shoreline.  The communities of Port Wing, Herbster, Cornucopia, Red Cliff, Bayfield, Washburn, and Ashland lie on this stretch of highway.  The interior of the peninsula is mostly the northern end of the Chequamegon National Forest, an area of jackpine growth known as the Moquah Barrens.  The Apostle Islands surround the end of the peninsula. A Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue is a work by American Christian reformer, theologian, author and, pastor Jonathan Edwards originally published posthumously in 1765.  The work was published jointly with "A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World".
Answer: Paul Henry Landis