He was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School in 1891, and worked as an assistant in geology from 1890 to 1891.^[1] Beginning in 1892, he served as assistant in geology at Cornell, where he became professor of dynamic geology and physical geography from 1897 until his death.^[2]

He was Assistant United States Fish Commissioner 1882-3 while he was connected with the Smithsonian Institution, and Assistant Geologist for the Texas Geological Survey in 1888 and 1891.^[2] He was in charge of the 1896 Cornell expedition to Greenland largely to study glaciology while being attached to the Peary expedition's goal to retrieve a large iron meteorite.^[3][4] He also served as president of the Association of American Geographers in 1911-1912.

Besides acting as associate editor of the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society and the Journal of Geography, he published:

• Economic Geology of the United States (1893)
• Economic Geology of the United States (1898)
• Physical Geography of New York State (1902)
• New Physical Geography (1903)
• Geography of Science (1905), with C. A. McMurry

Two posthumous publications were published: College Physiography (1914) and Alaskan Glacier Studies (1914), with Lawrence Martin.

•   Works by or about Ralph Stockman Tarr at Wikisource