Sharp was a native son of Oxnard, California.[5][6] He attended Caltech as an undergraduate, beginning in 1930, earning a bachelor's degree (1934) in geology, and master's degree (1935) in geology. While at Caltech, he was quarterback on the football team.
Sharp was briefly an instructor in geology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign before World War II, and briefly an assistant professor of geology at the University of Minnesota immediately after the war. As soon as possible, Caltech's Division Chairman Ian Campbell arranged for Sharp to return home to Caltech as a full professor in 1947. Sharp remained at Caltech for the next half-century, and was quickly promoted to the Chairman of the Division of Geological Sciences, later renamed to the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. At Caltech, Sharp mentored dozens of doctoral students in field geomorphology; these are now working at the United States Geological Survey facility in Menlo Park, California and in leading geology departments throughout North America.
Research
Sharp became a published expert on the glacial geomorphology of the Sierra Nevada range, the Trinity Alps of northwestern California, the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, and Mount Saint Elias in the Fairweather Range of Alaska. In the winter season, he focused his geological field work in the Mojave Desert of California, with emphasis on the geomorphology of Cima Dome, and the sliding stones on the Racetrack Playa in northern Death Valley.
He was an expert on the physics of blown sand and the formation of sand dunes in the Mojave Desert and the Coachella Valley. He was awarded the Kirk Bryan Award by the Geological Society of America for his work on the geomorphology of sand dunes in desert terrain.
Sharp loved weekend field trips, and so he authored a number of field books in geology of southern California, published by Mountain Press. While in his sixties, Sharp continued to teach field geology to Caltech geology students during summer classes at Henry Mountain in Utah, where Grove Karl Gilbert discovered laccoliths.
After retiring from Caltech, Sharp and his wife Jean moved their home from Altadena to Santa Barbara. They had two children.
