Henry Hicks (geologist)

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Henry Hicks (born May 26, 1837 in St Davids , Pembrokeshire , † November 18, 1899 in Hendon , London ) was a British doctor and surgeon, paleontologist and geologist. He dealt specifically with the early Paleozoic ( Cambrian , Silurian ) and late Precambrian of his native Wales, but also with the Devonian .

Henry Hicks

Hicks was the son of a surgeon in St Davids and studied medicine at Guy's Hospital . In 1862 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS). Until 1871 he practiced as a doctor in his home town of St Davids and then in London (Hendon), where he specialized in psychiatry. In 1878 he received his doctorate (MD) from the University of St. Andrews.

Life

He is known as a geologist and paleontologist. Already in his youth in Wales he came into contact with the paleontologist of the Geological Survey of Great Britain John William Salter . With him he investigated the Cambrian and Silurian of Wales and both defined the Menevian Formation of the middle Cambrian in West Wales in 1865 (with the trilobite Paradoxides as a key fossil). In this context, numerous initial descriptions come from him. He also examined Precambrian volcanic rocks of the Pebidian Supergroup introduced by him in 1876 (from the Ediacarium ) in the vicinity of St Davids and Precambrian granites occurring there (called Dimetian by him). Later he researched (during his vacations) in the north of Wales, where he found Precambrian rocks in previously unsuspected places. He also dealt with the Pleistocene deposits of the Denbigshire caves in north-east Wales and with rocks and fossils of geology (among other things, he was the first to find fossils in the previously fossil-free schists (Mort Slate) from Devonian and Lower Silurian in Mortehoe ) .

He was involved in a controversial geologist at the time with the famous geologist Archibald Geikie , which raised the question of whether the granites ( granophyres ) in the vicinity of St David's were Cambrian (Geikie) or Precambrian (Hicks) in origin. Eventually the question was settled in Hicks' favor. An excavated profile revealed that the granites were overlaid by basal Cambrian conglomerates. He was also involved in the so-called Highland controversy between Roderick Murchison and James Nicol on the geology of Scotland, which he revived after Murchison's death in 1878.

From 1885 he was a Fellow of the Royal Society . From 1896 to 1898 he was President of the Geological Society of London .

He had been married since 1864 and had three daughters.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hicks, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 1877
personal data
SURNAME Hicks, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British medic, paleontologist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH St Davids , Pembrokeshire
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1899
Place of death Hendon , London