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John Sewall Shelton was a geologist, pilot and photographer. He was born Sept. 2, 1913, in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was the oldest of three boys born to Henry Wood Shelton and Dorothy Camp Shelton. In 1923, the family moved to La Jolla, California. He was home-schooled until he entered the seventh grade at Francis Parker School. He graduated from La Jolla High School and went on to Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he majored in math and music. He was president of the Pomona College Men's Glee Club when it won a national competition in St. Louis. He graduated in 1935 and went on to earn a doctorate degree in geology from Yale. Returning to Pomona, he became the second faculty member in the college's geology department, and taught there from 1945 to 1960. He went on to serve as a scientific adviser to the American Geological Institute from 1962 to 1974, and was particularly active in the development of educational films about geology and geological concepts.

He learned to fly in the early 1940s and started taking aerial photographs of the earth's surface while piloting his own plane. His large collection of photographs taken throughout western North America are still used to teach geology nationwide. In the 1960s, he was a consultant for Encyclopedia Britannica Films and traveled around the world helping to make educational films. John Shelton died on July 24, 2008, at the age of 94.