Born in Wallingford, Connecticut, Dutton graduated from Yale in 1860 and then entered the Yale Theological Seminary. He joined the army in 1862 during the Civil War and remained in the army although not always on active service. He became interested in geology and joined the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountains and the West in 1875.

The term ‘isostasy’ was introduced into geology by Dutton in 1889. This described a theory propounded by George Airy in which it is supposed that mountain ranges and continents rest on a much denser base. As mountains are eroded or snow melts from the continents the land rises while the settling sediment will compensate by depressing some other part of the Earth.

After his return to the army in 1890 Dutton turned to the study of earthquakes and volcanoes. His research was published in 1904 in his Earthquakes in the Light of the New Seismology.