The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,
#3201
Alfred Elis Törnebohm
1838 - 1911 (73 years)
Alfred Elis Törnebohm was a Swedish geologist, best known today for his study of the overthrust of the Caledonian range. After studies at the Royal Institute of Technology 1855-1858, he worked at the Geological Survey of Sweden 1859-1873, from 1870 as its head. 1873-1874 he studied petrographic microscopy at University of Leipzig under Ferdinand Zirkel. In 1874 he quit SGU for private activity as a geologist, and for a number of years he conducted geological surveys for various Swedish companies. He taught geology and mineralogy at KTH from 1878 and held a position as lecturer 1885-1897. He returned to SGU as head in 1897, succeeding Otto Torell, and was named professor.
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Alexander Tvalchrelidze
1881 - 1957 (76 years)
Alexander Tvalchrelidze was a Georgian geologist. Member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences . Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences , professor , Honored Scientist of the Georgian SSR . He led numerous expeditions that discovered useful deposits of metals, marble, and in particular, clay deposits. The mineral of Tvalchrelidzeite is named after Alexander Tvalchrelidze.
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Osmond Fisher
1817 - 1914 (97 years)
Reverend Osmond Fisher was an English clergyman, geologist and geophysicist. He was one of the early geologists who proposed the idea that the earth consisted of a solid crust floating above a fluid core.
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Arvid Högbom
1857 - 1940 (83 years)
Arvid Gustaf Högbom was a Swedish geologist. He was a professor of mineralogy and geology at Uppsala University. Biography Arvid Högbom was born at Vännäs in Västerbotten County, Sweden. Högbom was a student at Uppsala University earning a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1880 and a Licentiate in philosophy in 1884. In 1885, he defended his doctorate thesis; Iakttagelser rörande Jemtlands glaciala geologi med inledande öfversigt af berggrunden .
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Theodor Kjerulf
1825 - 1888 (63 years)
Theodor Kjerulf was a Norwegian geologist and professor at the University of Oslo. He also served as director of the Norwegian Geological Survey. Biography He was born in Christiania , Norway. He was the son of Peder Kjerulf and Elisabet Maria Lasson . He was the brother of composer Halfdan Kjerulf. He was educated in the Royal Frederick University and subsequently studied in Germany, working with Karl Georg Bischof in Bonn and Robert Wilhelm Bunsen in Heidelberg.
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Thomas Corwin Mendenhall
1841 - 1924 (83 years)
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall was an American autodidact physicist and meteorologist. He was the first professor hired at Ohio State University in 1873 and the superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1889 to 1894. Alongside his work, he was also an advocate for the adoption of the metric system by the United States and is the father of author profiling.
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Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen
1841 - 1900 (59 years)
Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen was a German geologist and paleontologist. He was born in Munich and died in Vienna. Overview He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Munich, where he studied the rocks and fossils of the Jurassic system, and published an elaborate work on geology that was crowned by the university. In 1866, he became an instructor in palaeontology at the University of Munich and at the same time taught Princess Theresa and Prince Arnulf of Bavaria. Although an excellent teacher, and especially competent in practical work, Waagen, who was a most loyal Catholic, had little prospect of obtaining a professorship at the University of Munich.
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Wallace Walter Atwood
1872 - 1949 (77 years)
Wallace Walter Atwood was an American geographer and geologist. Biography Wallace Walter Atwood studied geography at the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He graduated in 1897 and earned his doctorate in 1903, after which he was Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Chicago until 1913. He was professor of Physiography at Harvard from 1913 to 1920. He was elected president of Clark University in 1920 and assumed that position until 1946. As president of Clark University, he ordered in 1922, that the lights be turned off while Sco...
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Janet Watson
1923 - 1985 (62 years)
Janet Vida Watson FRS FGS was a British geologist. She was a professor of Geology at Imperial College, a rapporteur for the International Geological Correlation Program and a vice president of the Royal Society . In 1982 she was elected president of the Geological Society of London, the first woman to occupy that position. She is well known for her contribution to the understanding of the Lewisian complex and as an author and co-author of several books including Beginning Geology and Introduction to Geology.
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Ernst Weinschenk
1865 - 1921 (56 years)
Ernst Heinrich Oskar Kasimir Weinschenk was a German mineralogist and petrologist. He served as a professor at the "Technische Hochschule" in Munich and at the University of Munich . His scientific research included mineralogical analysis of meteorites, and studies of contact-metamorphic mineralization in the Alpine region of central Europe. He also conducted investigations on the origin of the sulfidic ore deposit at Silberberg in the Bavarian Forest, as well as the genesis of graphite deposits near Passau. Through the use of polarizing microscopy and thin sectioning, he determined numerous...
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John Hailstone
1759 - 1847 (88 years)
John Hailstone was an English geologist. Biography Early life He was placed at an early age under the care of a maternal uncle at York, and was sent to Beverley school in the East Riding. Samuel Hailstone was a younger brother. John went to Cambridge, entering first at Catharine Hall, and afterwards at Trinity College, and was second wrangler and second in the Smith's Prize of his year . He was second in both competitions to James Wood who became master of Saint John's, and Dean of Ely.
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Georgy Fedorovich Morozov
1867 - 1920 (53 years)
Georgy Fedorovich Morozov was a forester and biologist in the Russian Empire who introduced the first ecological ideas to classify forest types. He introduced ideas of "the forest as a plant society",which he developed into the definition of the forest as a complex biogeocenotic, geographic and historical phenomenon that was made up of non-living and living components.
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Bernard Brunhes
1867 - 1910 (43 years)
Antoine Joseph Bernard Brunhes was a French geophysicist known for his pioneering work in paleomagnetism, in particular, his 1906 discovery of geomagnetic reversal. The current period of normal polarity, Brunhes Chron, and the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal are named for him.
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Leonard Hawkes
1891 - 1981 (90 years)
Leonard Hawkes FRS was a British geologist. Awarded the Murchison Medal in 1946 and the Wollaston Medal in 1962. He was head of the geology department at Bedford College, London between 1921 and 1956.
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Georg Adolf Suckow
1751 - 1813 (62 years)
Georg Adolf Suckow sometimes Adolph was a German physicist, chemist, mineralogist, mining engineer and naturalist. Suckow was a professor of physics, chemistry, and natural history at the University of Heidelberg. He wrote many books and articles on chemistry, botany, zoology and mineralogy. From 1808 he was a Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His son Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Suckow was also a naturalist.
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Yang Zhongjian
1897 - 1979 (82 years)
Yang Zhongjian, also Yang Chung-chien , courtesy name Keqiang , also known as C.C. Young, was a Chinese paleontologist and zoologist. He was one of China's foremost vertebrate paleontologists. He has been called the "Father of Chinese Vertebrate Paleontology".
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Franz Heritsch
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
Franz Heritsch was an Austrian geologist and paleontologist, known for his studies of the Paleozoic of the Eastern Alps. From 1902 to 1906 he studied at the University of Graz, and following graduation, worked as a middle school teacher in Graz. In 1909 he obtained his habilitation, and later on, served as an associate , and full professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Graz. He was a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
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Alexander Henry Green
1832 - 1896 (64 years)
Alexander Henry Green FRS was an English geologist. Life Green was born at Maidstone on 10 October 1832, was the eldest son of Thomas Sheldon Green, head-master of the Ashby Grammar School at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, who had married Miss Derington of Hinckley in Leicestershire. After passing through his father's school he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was admitted pensioner on 25 June 1851, and graduated as sixth wrangler in 1855. Elected a fellow of his college in the same year, he proceeded M.A. in 1858, and resided until 1861.
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Arthur Louis Day
1869 - 1960 (91 years)
Arthur Louis Day was an American geophysicist and volcanologist. He studied high temperature thermometry, seismology and geothermal energy. Early life Day was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts and received his A.B. from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in 1892. He earn his Ph.D from Sheffield in 1894, and taught at Yale until 1897. Day received an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen on July 1, 1914.
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Herbert Hall Turner
1861 - 1930 (69 years)
Herbert Hall Turner was a British astronomer and seismologist. Biography Herbert Hall Turner was educated at the Leeds Modern School, Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1884 he accepted the post of Chief Assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and stayed there for nine years. In 1893 he became Savilian Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford University, a post he held for 37 years until his sudden death in 1930.
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Heinrich Döring
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Heinrich Doring, born Michael Johann Heinrich Döring was a German writer, theologian and mineralogist. He became known mainly as a biographer of the German classical writers, and especially the first biographer of Goethe.
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Wilhelm Dames
1843 - 1898 (55 years)
Wilhelm Barnim Dames was a German paleontologist of the Berlin University, who described the first complete specimen of the early bird Archaeopteryx in 1894. This specimen is currently in the Museum für Naturkunde.
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Charles Cotton
1885 - 1970 (85 years)
Sir Charles Andrew Cotton was a New Zealand geologist and geomorphologist, described as one of the leading scientists that New Zealand has produced. Early life and family Born in Dunedin, Cotton was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School, where he lost the sight in his left eye because of a schoolmate's prank. In 1908 Cotton graduated from the University of Otago with an MSc, with first-class honours in geology.
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Wilhelm Josef Grailich
1829 - 1859 (30 years)
Wilhelm Joseph Grailich was an Austrian physicist, mineralogist and crystallographer. Education From 1847, Grailich studied sciences at the polytechnic institute in Vienna. Career Grailich served as an assistant to Andreas von Ettingshausen in the institute of physics at the University of Vienna. In 1856 he became an assistant at the Hofmineraliencabinett, where soon afterwards, he succeeded Gustav Adolf Kenngott as "kustos-adjunkt". In 1857 he became an associate professor of higher physics at the university, and in 1859, was chosen as a member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. In 1910, a ...
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Henry Stephens Washington
1867 - 1934 (67 years)
Henry Stephens Washington was an American geologist. Biography Washington was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 15, 1867. He attended Yale University, graduating in 1886, and took his masters there two years later. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1893. He also studied at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. His research included trips to Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, Spain, Brazil and the Hawaiian islands. By 1920 he was a consulting mining geologist of high reputation.
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Nikolay Koksharov
1818 - 1892 (74 years)
Nikolai Ivanovich Koksharov was a Russian mineralogist, crystallographer, and major general in the Russian army. He was noted for his measurements of crystals using a goniometer. Life Nikolai Koksharov was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk . He was educated at the military school of mines in St. Petersburg. At the age of twenty-two he was selected to accompany Roderick Murchison and Édouard de Verneuil, and afterwards Dr. Keyserling, in their geological survey of the Russian Empire. Subsequently, he devoted his attention mainly to the study of mineralogy and mining, and was appointed director of the Institute of Mines.
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Charles Tilstone Beke
1800 - 1874 (74 years)
Charles Tilstone Beke was an English traveller, geographer and Biblical critic. Biography Born in Stepney, London, the son of a merchant in the City of London, for a few years Beke engaged in mercantile pursuits. He later studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and for a time practised at the Bar, but finally devoted himself to the study of historical, geographical and ethnographical subjects.
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Hans Henrik Reusch
1852 - 1922 (70 years)
Hans Henrik Reusch was a Norwegian geologist, geomorphologist and educator. He served as director of the Geological Survey of Norway. Biography Born in Bergen, he was educated at the University of Leipzig and Heidelberg University. He graduated Ph.D. at the University of Christiania in 1883. He was married to the painter Helga Marie Ring Reusch He joined the Geological Survey of Norway in 1875, and was its Director from 1888 to 1921. He was a Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard University .
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George Perkins Merrill
1854 - 1929 (75 years)
George Perkins Merrill was an American geologist, notable as the head curator from 1917 to 1929 of the Department of Geology, United States National Museum . Biography George Perkins Merrill was born in Auburn, Maine on May 31, 1854. He was educated at the University of Maine , took a post-graduate courses of study and was assistant in chemistry at Wesleyan University, Connecticut , and subsequently studied at Johns Hopkins .
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Nikolai A. Golovkinsky
1834 - 1897 (63 years)
Nikolai A. Golovkinsky was a Russian geologist who studied among other things the Paleozoic sediments of Tatarstan. He was professor at the Kazan School of Geology.
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Dimitrij Andrusov
1897 - 1976 (79 years)
Dimitrij Andrusov was a Slovak geologist of Russian origin, member of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He was first professor of geology on Slovak colleges. He is considered the founder of modern Slovak geology.
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Victor Bursian
1886 - 1945 (59 years)
Victor Robertovich Bursian was a Soviet scientist who worked on theoretical physics, geophysics, electricity and thermodynamics, crystal physics, and the theory of electrical resistivity tomography.
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Dmitry Mushketov
1882 - 1938 (56 years)
Dmitry Ivanovich Mushketov was a Russian Empire and Soviet geologist and paleontologist, one of the victims of the Great Terror. Biography Dmitry Mushketov was born in Saint Petersburg to the family of Ivan Vasilyevich Mushketov, a famous explorer and professor at the Mining Institute, and Ekaterina Pavlovna Mushketova.
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Gottlob Linck
1858 - 1947 (89 years)
Gottlob Eduard Linck was a German mineralogist. From 1879, he studied at the polytechnic college in Stuttgart, followed by classes at the Universities of Strasbourg and Tübingen. In 1888 he was habilitated for mineralogy and petrography at Strasbourg, where in 1894, he became an associate professor. Later the same year, he was named professor of mineralogy and geology at the University of Jena, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1930. On five occasions, he served as university rector at Jena.
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George Ferdinand Becker
1847 - 1919 (72 years)
George Ferdinand Becker was an American geologist. His most important work was in connection with the origin and mode of occurrence of ore deposits, especially those of the western United States. Biography Becker was born in New York City, 5 January 1847. He was the son of Alexander Christian Becker and Sarah Carey Tuckerman Becker of Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1868, studied at Heidelberg, receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1869, and, two years later, passed the final examination of the Royal School of Mines in Berlin. From 1875 until 1879 he was instructor ...
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James Nicol
1810 - 1879 (69 years)
James Nicol FRSE FGS was a Scottish geologist. Life He was born at Traquair, near Innerleithen in Peeblesshire, the son of Rev. James Nicol , and his wife Agnes Walker. He studied Arts and Divinity at Edinburgh University from 1825. He also attended the lectures of Robert Jameson, having gained a keen interest in geology and mineralogy. He further pursued these studies in the universities of Bonn and Berlin.
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Jan Dylik
1905 - 1973 (68 years)
Jan Dylik was a Polish geography professor at the University of Łódz. He was born in Łódź on 19 June 1905. In 1925 he begain post-secondary studies at Jagiellonian University. He then went on to attend Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań to pursue research and a doctoral degree. He found himself fascinated by the differences in geology between the Greater Poland Voivodeship and the Łódź Voivodeship. He collaborated with Stanisław Lencewicz on a project to analyze the Łódź region's geology and geomorphology. The resulting paper was published in 1927, and for many years was considered the only source of information on the geology of Łódź.
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Alexander Sadebeck
1843 - 1879 (36 years)
Alexander Sadebeck was a German geologist and mineralogist. He was a brother of botanist Richard Sadebeck . He studied mineralogy and geology at the University of Berlin as a pupil of Gustav Rose. In 1865 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on Upper Jurassic formations in Pomerania. In 1872 he was appointed professor of mineralogy and geology at the University of Kiel.
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James E. Gill
1901 - 1980 (79 years)
James Edward Gill was a scientist, teacher, explorer and mine developer. Along with William R. James, Sr. he discovered the high-grade iron ore deposits of Quebec and Labrador. He is remembered for his important contributions in the fields of stratigraphy and Pleistocene geology.
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Félix Garrigou
1835 - 1920 (85 years)
Joseph Louis Félix Garrigou was a French physician, prehistorian and hydrologist. He is known for his investigations of prehistoric artifacts and remains found in caves of southern France . Also, he was the author of numerous writings on mineral waters from a chemical/medical perspective.
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John House
1919 - 1984 (65 years)
John William House was a British geographer, who was Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1983. Life House was born in 1919 and educated at Bradford Grammar School before studying geography at Jesus College, Oxford under the tuition of J. N. L. Baker. After service during the Second World War with the Intelligence Corps , he taught geography at King's College, Newcastle for 28 years; he was head of department from 1964 to 1974. He was appointed as the first Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford in 1974, a post he held until ill-health forced his retirement in 1983.
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Ralph Bagnold
1896 - 1990 (94 years)
Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, OBE, FRS, was an English 20th-century desert explorer, geologist and soldier. In 1932, he staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert. His work in the field of Aeolian processes was the basis for the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, establishing the discipline of aeolian geomorphology, combining field work observations, experiments and physical equations. His work has been used by United States' space agency NASA in its study of the terrain of the planet Mars, the Bagnold Dunes on Mars' surface being named after him by th...
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Elisha Mitchell
1793 - 1857 (64 years)
Elisha Mitchell was an American educator, geologist and Presbyterian minister. His geological studies led to the identification of North Carolina's Mount Mitchell as the highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River.
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William Phipps Blake
1826 - 1910 (84 years)
William Phipps Blake was an American geologist, mining consultant, and educator. Among his best known contributions include being the first college trained chemist to work full-time for a United States chemical manufacturer , and serving as a geologist with the Pacific Railroad Survey of the Far West , where he observed and detailed a theory on erosion by wind-blown sand on the geologic formations of southern California, one of his many scientific contributions. He started several western mining enterprises that were premature, including a mining magazine in the 1850s and the first school o...
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Grove Karl Gilbert
#3246
Robert Norman
1560 - 1584 (24 years)
Robert Norman was a 16th-century-English mariner, compass builder, and hydrographer who discovered magnetic inclination, the deviation of the Earth's magnetic field from the vertical. Work Robert Norman is noted for The Newe Attractive, a pamphlet published in 1581 describing the lodestone and practical aspects of navigation. More importantly, it included Norman's measurement of magnetic dip, the incline at an angle from the horizon by a compass needle discovered by Georg Hartmann in 1544. This effect is caused by the Earth's magnetic field not running parallel to the planet's surface. Norman demonstrated magnetic dip by creating a compass needle that pivoted on a horizontal axis.
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Arved von Schultz
1883 - 1967 (84 years)
Arved Carl Ludwig von Schultz was a German geographer. Life Arved von Schultz was born in Latvia to landowner Erich von Schultz , who in 1892 was the inspector of goods in the city of Riga, and his wife Valerie of Moczulski. During his holidays from 1901 to 1904 Schultz led study tours in the Caucasus and the Russian Central Asia. Schultz attended the German Eltz'sche Privatgymnasium in Riga and in 1904 passed his exams at Alexander High School. Beginning in 1904 he studied in Moscow and Dorpat and in 1906 Schultz enrolled at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin. His studied were interrupted in 1905 due to riots in Tartu and he spent half a year traveling through Central Asia.
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George Chisholm
1850 - 1930 (80 years)
George Goudie Chisholm FRSE FRSGS LLD was a Scottish geographer. He authored the first English-language textbook on economic geography: Handbook on Commercial Geography and the World Gazetteer, later to become known as The Times Gazetteer.
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Samuel James Shand
1882 - 1957 (75 years)
Prof Samuel James Shand was a British mineralogist and petrologist, specialising in silicate analysis and igneous petrology. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 29 October 1882 the son of James Shand , originally from Sandsting in Shetland, and Catherine Grant Hunter from Lerwick in Shetland. In 1881 the family had moved from Shetland to Taap Hall, a curious Georgian tenement on Ferry Road in the Leith district. However they moved to "Selivoe" on Park Road in the Newhaven district and James was born there.
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Børge Fristrup
1918 - 1985 (67 years)
Børge Fristrup was a Danish geographer. He studied glaciology, specialising in the Greenland ice sheet, at the University of Copenhagen and at Stockholm University, receiving a Hans Egede Medal for his research in 1971.
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