Archibald Geikie was born on December 28, 1835, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He was a Scottish geologist and writer. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. In 1855, he was appointed an assistant on the British Geological Survey. His first major assignment was to help Sir Roderick Murchison survey the highlands of Scotland with maps of the region being published in 1863. In 1893, Geikie published a larger and more detailed map of the region. When a separate branch of the Geological Survey was established in Scotland in 1867, he was appointed the director. In 1871, he became the Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Edinburgh. In 1873, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and received their Royal Medal in 1896. He served as the director of the Museum of Practical Geology (1882-1901), president of the Geological Society of London (1891-1892, 1906-1908), and president of the British Association (1892). He was the recipient of many honorary degrees from Oxford University, the University of Dublin and Glasgow. He received a knighthood in 1891, the Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1907, and the Order of Merit in 1914. Mount Geikie in the Canadian Rockies, Geikie Peak in the Grand Canyon, and the Geikie Slide in the Atlantic Ocean northwest of Scotland are named after him. He was the author of many books, e.g., "The Teaching of Geography" (1887), “Life of R. I. Murchison” (2 vols., 1877), "The Geology of Central and Western Fife and Kinross" (1900), "The Geology of Eastern Fife" (1902), "Scottish Reminiscences" (1904), "Landscape in History and other Essays" (1905), “Charles Darwin as a Geologist” (1909), "Birds of Shakespeare" (1916), and an autobiography “A Long Life's Work” (1924).

In 1871, he married Alice Gabrielle Anne Marie Pignatel (1851–1916). He died on November 10, 1924, in Haslemere, England.