Charles Schuchert

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Charles Schuchert (born July 3, 1858 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † November 20, 1942 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American paleontologist who was a leader in the development of paleogeography , the study of the distribution of land and sea in the geological past. In 1904 Schuchert coined the term paleobiology .

Scientific career

During the 1880s, Schuchert, who had never had any scientific training but had worked for a long time in his father's carpenter 's workshop, together with his friend Edward Oscar Ulrich made his living drawing illustrations for scientific publications for various geological surveys as he performed each Used free time to enlarge his ever-growing fossil collection . In 1889 James Hall offered him a job in Albany . According to Schuchert, this was probably not so much due to his technical skills, but rather to his fine collection of brachiopods : Hall was known for taking the strangest detours for the rights to use outstanding palaeontological collections. Schuchert was not initially granted the right to publish scientific papers, and Hall published the work An Introduction to the Study of the Genera of Paleozoic Brachiopoda in the early 1990s together with John Mason Clarke , in which Schuchert played no small part.

Following the work on this publication, Schuchert was finally able to work as an author, and did so with a work on the brachiopods of Minnesota . In 1893 he found a position with the United States Geological Survey and became an assistant to Charles D. Walcott , the chief paleontologist of the survey, only to be transferred to the Peabody Museum at Yale University to Charles Emerson Beecher , whom he was evaluating the Marsh -Collection helped, a collection of under Carboniferous Crinoids from Indiana . Beecher made him familiar with the broad and comprehensive perspective that later characterized Schuchert's work.

Schuchert was assistant curator of the invertebrate department of the National Museum of Natural History from 1894 to 1904 .

He then moved to Yale University to succeed Charles E. Beecher, the first professor at Yale University for the paleontology of invertebrates . The position at Yale University meant that he was professor of both paleontology and historical geology at the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University. Schuchert's students include Percy Edward Raymond , William Henry Twenhofel and Carl Owen Dunbar . The lessons of young students who were not yet familiar with the subject forced Schuchert, who was used to the academic operation of the museum, to undergo a change that was sometimes painful. In order to give the students an overview of the changing conditions between land and sea in Paleozoic America, he began with the design of paleogeographic maps, a task that occupied him for the rest of his life and resulted in a work of more than 150 such maps.

After he became the head of the geological department at the Sheffield School in 1909, and in 1918/1919 the chairman of this department at Yale University himself, he retired from teaching and administration in 1921 to devote himself only to his studies. For some time he was still professor and curator emeritus , but in 1926 he gave up all offices.

Relieved of all obligations, he published numerous scientific papers in the following two decades. From his central topic, the brachiopods, he turned, among other things, to the study of fossil tradition in connection with the geosynclinal theory valid at the time , which he was able to support with numerous details.

He was unable to complete his crowning life's work on the geological history of North America, of the planned three volumes of Historical Geology of North America only two were published before he died in 1942, the third remained unpublished.

honors and awards

In 1910 Schuchert was elected President of the Paleontological Society and into the National Academy of Sciences , in 1913 in the American Philosophical Society , in 1915 in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1922 President of the Geological Society of America . He was a member of scientific associations in Belgium, China, Germany, England, Norway, Austria, Russia and Sweden. Among other awards, he was awarded the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1934 . The Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society is named after him. In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1929 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Works

  • 1897: A Synopsis of American Fossil Brachiopoda. Including Bibliography and Synonomy. (= United States Geological Survey Bulletin, Volume 87)
  • 1902: Paleozoic seas and barriers in eastern Morth America. In: New York Stae Museum Bulletin . Volume 52, pp. 633-663 (with EO Ulrich)
  • 1910: Paleogeography of North America. In: Geological Society of America Bulletin . Volume 20, pp. 427-606
  • 1915: A Text-Book of Geology. Part II: Historical Geology. Pp. 405–1025, Wiley & Sons, New York (with LV Pirsson)
  • 1923: Sites and Nature of the American Geosynclines. Presidential Address before the Geological Society of America. In: Geological Society of America Bulletin . Volume 33, pp. 665-670
  • 1927: The Earth and Its Rhythms. D. Appleton & Cie., New York (with CM LeVene)
  • 1930: Orogenic Times of the Northern Appalachians. In: Geological Society of America Bulletin . Volume 41, pp. 701-724
  • 1932: Brachiopod Genera of the Suborders Orthoidea and Pentameroidea. (= Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Volume 4, Part 1, with G. Arthur Cooper) (digitized version)
  • 1935: Historical Geology of North America. Part I. Historical Geology of the Antillean-Caribbean Region. Wiley & Sons, New York
  • 1943: Historical Geology of North America. Part II. Stratigraphy of the Eastern and Central United States.
  • Historical Geology of North America. Part III. Stratigraphy of Greater Acadia, eastern and central Arctic Canada, the Arctic Archipelago, and Greenland, with atlas of paleogeographic maps. (unpublished)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Schopf: Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils. Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-691-00230-4 . P. 170 ( Google Books )
  2. ^ Rudolf Ruedemann: Biographical Memoir of Edward Oscar Ulrich, 1857-1944. In: National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs . Volume 24, 1947 (PDF; 1.1 MB)
  3. ↑ Knopf 1952, p. 366
  4. ↑ The academic lineage of Railsback's graduate students. University of Georgia, Geology Department (English)
  5. ^ Member History: Charles Schuchert. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 3, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Awardees. ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Charles Schuchert Award, Paleontological Society  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.paleosoc.org
  7. ^ Member entry by Charles Schuchert at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 9, 2016.
  8. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 219.
personal data
SURNAME Schuchert, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1942
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut