Library: Geology by Credo Reference: Notable People

Notable Geologists

Louis Agassiz (1807-1873): Topic Page
Swiss-born US palaeontologist and geologist who developed the idea of the ice age.
Mary Anning (1799-1847): Topic Page
Mary Anning supplied fossils to palaeontologists, collectors and museums, as well as to the visitors to her shop in Lyme Regis and attracted the general public to fossil-collecting and to herself, by her successes.
William Buckland
In The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography
English geologist and palaeontologist, a pioneer of British geology.
Georges Cuvier (1769 - 1832): Topic Page
French zoologist eminent for his role in the founding of modern palaeontology.
James Hutton (1726-1797): Topic Page
Scottish natural philosopher who pioneered uniformitarian geology.
Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875): Topic Page
Scottish geologist who succeeded in turning the opinion of his time away from the theory that the Earth was produced literally along the lines expounded in the Old Testament book of Genesis towards the principle of an unlimited, gradual effect of natural forces. His beliefs became known in geology as ‘uniformitarianism’.
Friedrich Mohs (1773-1839)
From The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography
German mineralogist who devised the Mohs scale, by which minerals are classified in order of relative hardness.
William Smith (1769-1839)
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists
British geologist and surveyor: pioneer of geological mapping; proposed principle of superposition.
Nicolaus Steno (1638 - 1686)
In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Danish anatomist and naturalist, one of the founders of stratigraphy. To illustrate his ideas, Steno sketched what are probably the earliest geological sections.
Alfred Wegener (1880-1930): Topic Page
German geologist, meteorologist, and Arctic explorer.

Notable Seismologists

Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960)
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists
German– US geophysicist: demonstrated that the Earth’s outer core is liquid.
Richard Dixon Oldham (1858-1936)
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists
British seismologist and geologist: first observed P and S waves and discovered the Earth’s core.
Frank Press (1924- )
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
US seismologist and government science adviser. As director of the California Institute of Technology's seismological laboratory, Press and his colleagues first identified the "free oscillations" of the earth – the persistent global vibrations arising from earthquakes and other geological disturbances.
Charles Francis Richter (1900-1985)
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists
US seismologist: devised Richter scale of earthquake strength.
Giuseppe Mercalli
In A Biographical Dictionary of People in Engineering: From Earliest Records to 2000
Italian seismologist; formulated scale to represent earthquake intensity (1902) with a scale of 1-12 on modified Mercalli scale.