Robert M. Schoch is an American geologist and faculty member at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He earned graduate degrees in geology and geophysics from Yale and has taught natural science, evolution, and interdisciplinary subjects for decades.

Schoch trained in geology and geophysics and built an academic career teaching natural science and studying fossils, rock, and landscape processes. His examination of erosion around the Great Sphinx brought him international attention outside his original specialties and led to books, expeditions, and lectures on ancient chronology. That public path made him a prominent dissenter from standard archaeological dating, while his continuing university role gave the dispute a credentialed geological voice rather than an exclusively popular one.

Schoch became internationally known after proposing that erosion on the Great Sphinx enclosure reflects heavy rainfall and therefore points to an earlier construction date than the conventional Old Kingdom chronology. Most Egyptologists and many geologists reject that conclusion, citing archaeological context and alternative weathering processes. Schoch has continued to connect early monumental sites, solar events, and the possibility of lost episodes in human civilization.

The Sphinx controversy redirected Schoch’s public career toward expeditions, documentaries, and broader arguments about forgotten episodes of civilization. Critics dispute both the dating and the historical conclusions built around it, while supporters treat geological weathering as a decisive challenge to orthodoxy. The debate now defines how his otherwise conventional academic biography is publicly understood.

Schoch’s geological work on the Sphinx made him an influential figure in pyramids and megaliths and ancient mysteries. He generally argues for a deeper and less linear human prehistory rather than extraterrestrial builders, a distinction often blurred in popular media. His professional training gives his site observations a scientific foundation, while the chronology and cultural conclusions drawn from them remain contested.