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,
#3301
Thomas Webster
1773 - 1844 (71 years)
Thomas Webster was a Scottish geologist. Life Webster was born in Orkney in 1772, probably at Kirkwall, and was educated at Aberdeen. He subsequently went to London and studied architecture, the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street being built from his design, and where in 1830 he delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture. In 1826 he was appointed house-secretary and curator to the Geological Society of London, and for many years he rendered important services in editing and illustrating the Transactions of the Society. In 1841–42 he was professor of geology in University College, London.
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Samuel Klein
1886 - 1940 (54 years)
Samuel Klein was a Hungarian-born rabbi, historian and historical geographer in Mandatory Palestine. Biography Born in Hungary to Idel Hertzfeld and to Avraham Zvi Klein, a rabbi of Szilas-Balhas in western Hungary, he initially received a traditional Jewish education , graduating from the Government Gymnasium at Budapest in 1905. From there he went on to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Berlin where he was ordained in the rabbinate. From 1906 to 1909, he was enrolled at the Hochschule für Wissenschaft des Judentums, and in the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin, before advanci...
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Marcus Jordanus
1531 - 1595 (64 years)
Marcus Jordanus was a Danish cartographer and mathematician. Jordanus studied at the University of Copenhagen, where in 1550 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics. Among other things, he gave lectures on geodesy and dealt with the geography of Ptolemy. In 1552, he published a map with the printer Hans Vingaard in Copenhagen. This was one of the first printed maps of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and Abraham Ortelius referred to it in his Catalogus Cartographorum. The map is now lost, and no copies survive.
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Viktor Nikolaev
1893 - 1960 (67 years)
Viktor Arsenyevich Nikolaev was a Russian and Soviet geologist and petrographer. He was a specialist on the petrology and deep crustal structure of the Tien Shan region. The so-called "Nikolaev Line" is a fault that separates the northern and central Tien Shan ranges.
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Harold Williams
#3306
Carl Størmer
1874 - 1957 (83 years)
Fredrik Carl Mülertz Størmer was a Norwegian mathematician and astrophysicist. In mathematics, he is known for his work in number theory, including the calculation of and Størmer's theorem on consecutive smooth numbers. In physics, he is known for studying the movement of charged particles in the magnetosphere and the formation of aurorae, and for his book on these subjects, From the Depths of Space to the Heart of the Atom. He worked for many years as a professor of mathematics at the University of Oslo in Norway. A crater on the far side of the Moon is named after him.
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Morten Thrane Brünnich
1737 - 1827 (90 years)
Morten Thrane Brünnich was a Danish zoologist and mineralogist. Biography Brünnich was born in Copenhagen, the son of a portrait painter. He studied oriental languages and theology, but soon became interested in natural history. He contributed his observations of insects to Erik Pontoppidan's Danske Atlas . After being put in charge of the natural history collection of Christian Fleischer he became interested in ornithology, and in 1764 he published Ornithologia Borealis, which included the details of many Scandinavian birds, some described for the first time.
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Hermann Guthe
1824 - 1874 (50 years)
Hermann Guthe was a German geographer. Biography He was born at Sankt Andreasberg in the Harz region, son of Heinrich Frederich Wilhelm Guthe , a merchant, and Wilhelmine Sophie Frederika Woge . Guthe was educated at Clausthal gymnasium , Göttingen , and Berlin , where he was a pupil of Carl Ritter.
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Alphonse François Renard
1842 - 1903 (61 years)
Alphonse Francois Renard , Belgian geologist and petrographer, was born at Ronse, in East Flanders, on 27 September 1842. He was educated for the church of Rome, and from 1866 to 1869 he was superintendent at the college de la Paix, Namur.
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Robert Hues
1553 - 1632 (79 years)
Robert Hues was an English mathematician and geographer. He attended St. Mary Hall at Oxford, and graduated in 1578. Hues became interested in geography and mathematics, and studied navigation at a school set up by Walter Raleigh. During a trip to Newfoundland, he made observations which caused him to doubt the accepted published values for variations of the compass. Between 1586 and 1588, Hues travelled with Thomas Cavendish on a circumnavigation of the globe, performing astronomical observations and taking the latitudes of places they visited. Beginning in August 1591, Hues and Cavendish again set out on another circumnavigation of the globe.
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A. Morley Davies
1869 - 1959 (90 years)
Arthur Morley Davies was a British palaeontologist and author or co-author of a number of books on the subject. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and Reader in Palaeontology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London. He was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1929.
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Ian Holbourn
1872 - 1935 (63 years)
Ian Holbourn , born John Bernard Stoughton Holbourn, was laird of Foula, a professor and lecturer for the University of Oxford, and a writer. Education and career Holbourn was educated at the Slade School of Art and Merton College at Oxford. As a young man he became fond of the remote Scottish island of Foula, which he succeeded in purchasing around 1900, thus becoming its laird.
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Isabel Fothergill Smith
1890 - 1990 (100 years)
Isabel Fothergill Smith was a geology professor from Greeley, Colorado. She studied geology at Bryn Mawr College under her mentor Florence Bascom. Smith published various articles as a student and a memoir on Bascom later during her retirement. Beginning her career as an associate professor of geology at Smith College, Isabel later became the first dean of Scripps College, a prestigious women's liberal arts college.
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William A. Dimichele
#3315
Friedrich Walchner
1799 - 1865 (66 years)
Friedrich August Walchner was a German geologist, chemist and mineralogist. Life Walchner was born in Meersburg. He studied in Göttingen and at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. In 1817 he joined the Corps Rhenania Freiburg. In Freiburg he was member of the Burschenschaft Genossenschaft/Verein zur Bearbeitung wissenschaftlicher Gegenstände and by the year 1818 he was member of the Alten Freiburger Burschenschaft . In Freiburg he habilitated in 1823 and became a private lecturer and associate professor. In 1825 he was appointed to professor in mineralogy, geology and chemistry at the...
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Eugene Allen Smith
1841 - 1927 (86 years)
Eugene Allen Smith was an American geologist. He was born in the town of Washington, Alabama, in 1841, the son of Samuel Parrish Smith and his wife Adelaide Julia Allen. After an education in Prattville and a three-year stint at Central High School in Philadelphia, Eugene matriculated to the University of Alabama as a junior in 1860, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1862. With the American Civil War underway, Eugene enlisted as a private with the 33rd Regiment Alabama Infantry of the Confederate States Army, and was elected to the rank of 2nd lieutenant by the men. In December 1862, Eugen...
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Émile Haug
1861 - 1927 (66 years)
Gustave Émile Haug was a French geologist and paleontologist known for his contribution to the geosyncline theory. Career Émile Haug was born on 19 June 1861. In 1884 he received his doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Strasbourg with a dissertation on the ammonite genus Harpoceras, titled "Beiträge zu einer monographie der Ammonitengattung Harpoceras". In 1897 he became maître de conférences at the Sorbonne in Paris, where in 1904 he was named a full professor of geology. In 1902 he was appointed president of the Société géologique de France, and from 1917 to 1927, was a mem...
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Gustaf Troedsson
1891 - 1954 (63 years)
Gustaf Timothy Troedsson , was a Swedish geologist and paleontologist. He was the son of Troed Troedsson, and the father of Trygve Troedsson. Troedsson defended his Ph.D. in geology in 1918 on the thesis Om Skånes brachiopodskiffer at Lund University, where he became Associate Professor in 1919. He was Professor of Geology at Stockholm University from 1924 till 1929 and became a lecturer in biology and geography at Higher general secondary school in Helsingborg in 1929. He became lecturer in geography and biology at the Higher general secondary school on Kungsholmen in Stockholm and associate professor of geology at the University of Stockholm in 1933.
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Pierre Jacotin
1765 - 1827 (62 years)
Pierre Jacotin was the director of the survey for the Carte de l'Égypte , the first triangulation-based map of Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The maps were surveyed in 1799–1800 during the campaign in Egypt and Palestine of Napoleon.
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Albert Johannsen
1871 - 1962 (91 years)
Albert Johannsen , was a geologist and geology professor at the University of Chicago who wrote several books on rocks. He also authored The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels . He collected dime novels. His academic focus was petrology. He also wrote a book about Charles Dickens book illustrator Phiz.
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Johannes Iversen
1904 - 1971 (67 years)
Johannes Iversen was a Danish palaeoecologist and plant ecologist. Biography He was born in Sønderborg and began studies in botany at the University of Copenhagen in 1923 under professor C.H. Ostenfeld, and with considerable inspiration from prof.em. Christen Raunkiær. At first he worked with macrophyte vegetation of lakes in relation to water pH. The influence from Raunkiær is particularly evident in Iversen's doctoral thesis, in which he divided herbaceous plants into hydrotypes based on experiments and morphological studies: xerophytes, mesophytes, hygrophytes, telmatophytes, amphiphytes and limnophytes.
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Henrik Johan Walbeck
1793 - 1822 (29 years)
Henrik Johan Walbeck was a Finnish geodesist and astronomer who studied the size and figure of the Earth by means of arc measurements. Walbeck was born in Turku . In 1817, he was made a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and, in 1820, of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Mathematische Gesellschaft in Hamburg. He committed suicide in 1822, also in Åbo.
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Hans Schardt
1858 - 1931 (73 years)
Hans Schardt was a Swiss geologist and a professor at the University of Neuchâtel and at the ETH and the University of Zurich. He contributed to studies on the folding and movement of layers of the earth based on stratigraphy. His studies where based on the Glarus thrust which he explained as a nappe.
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Karl Emil von Schafhäutl
1803 - 1890 (87 years)
Karl Franz Emil von Schafhäutl was a German naturalist and musicologist. He was professor of Geognosy in Munich. He was the author of Geognostische Untersuchungen des südbayerischen Alpengebirges and Der Gregorianische Choral in seiner Entwicklung . He also studied mining and foundry practise.
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Alice Garnett
1903 - 1989 (86 years)
Alice Garnett or Alice Crow was a British geographer at Sheffield University. She was the second British woman to become a professor of geography and she was vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society. She was the first woman president of the Institute of British Geographers and a winner of the Murchison Award.
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Alois Musil
1868 - 1944 (76 years)
Alois Musil was a Czech theologian, orientalist, explorer and bilingual Czech and German writer. Biography Musil was the oldest son born in 1868 into an poor farming family in Moravia . His birthplace of Rychtářov was in an area surrounded by German-speakers, allowing him and his brothers to learn to read and write both German and Czech. He was a second cousin of Robert Musil, an Austrian writer. In the years 1887–1891 he studied Roman Catholic theology at the University of Olomouc, was consecrated as a priest in 1891 and received a doctorate in theology in 1895. In the years 1895–1898 he studied at the Dominican Biblical School in Jerusalem, in 1897-1898 at the Jesuit University of St.
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David Page
1814 - 1879 (65 years)
David Page FRSE FGS LLD was a 19th-century Scottish geologist and scientific author. He was President of the Edinburgh Geological Society. Page was born on 24 August 1814 in Lochgelly, Fifeshire, where his father was a mason and builder. After being educated locally he was sent, at age 14, to the University of St Andrews, to be study divinity. However, he never joined the ministry and instead worked in scientific lecturing and journalism, acting for a time as editor of a Fifeshire newspaper.
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William Savage Boulton
1867 - 1954 (87 years)
William Savage Boulton FGS was an English geologist, mining engineer, and water engineer. Boulton was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, Mason Science College, and the Royal College of Science. He was from 1890 to 1897 an assistant lecturer and demonstrator for Professor Charles Lapworth at Mason Science College. Boulton was then a professor of geology at University College, Cardiff from 1897 to 1913, when he went to the University of Birmingham as Lapworth's successor upon the latter's retirement in 1913. Boulton was Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Birmingham from 1926 to 1929.
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Robert Wallace Webb
1909 - 1984 (75 years)
Robert Wallace Webb was a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and during World War II was Coordinator of Veterans Affairs for the University of California system. After World War II, Santa Barbara State College became a branch of the University of California and he transferred there in 1948 where he was one of the original professors of earth science at the University of California, Santa Barbara .
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Donald Esme Innes
Donald Esme Innes FRSE MC was a 20th century Scottish geologist. Life Born Donald Esme Isaacs on 22 November 1888 to Donald Isaacs and Anne Isaacs in Clifton, Bristol. He was bought up by Annie and Catherine Isaacson in Oxford from a very early age. He went to Repton and studied Sciences at Oxford University and graduated in 1911 with 1st class honours, specialising in Geology. He was awarded the Burden Coutts scholarship for post-graduate work and he later became Professor of Geology at St Andrews University.
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Ivar Werner Oftedal
1894 - 1976 (82 years)
Ivar Werner Oftedal was a Norwegian mineralogist. He was born in Larvik. He took his cand.real. degree in 1929 and the dr.philos. degree in 1941, both at the University of Oslo. After 29 years as a conservator at the University Museum, he was a professor of geology at the University of Oslo from 1949 to 1964, specializing in mineralogy, geochemistry and crystallography.
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J. Lawrence Smith
1818 - 1883 (65 years)
John Lawrence Smith was an American chemist and mineralogist. He published extensively on analytical chemistry and mineralogy, including Mineralogy and Chemistry, Original Researches . His collection of meteorites was the finest in the United States, and upon his death, he passed it to Harvard. The J. Lawrence Smith Medal is named in his honor.
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Thomas Robert Malthus
#3334
Jacoba Hol
1886 - 1964 (78 years)
Jacoba Hol was a Dutch physical geographer. In 1945, she was appointed professor of physical geography at the Geographic Institute at Utrecht University. This made her the first female 'normal' professor in the Netherlands.
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George W. Brindley
1905 - 1983 (78 years)
George William Brindley was a British-American crystallographer and mineralogist. He was known for his study of clay minerals including the structure of kaolinites. Education and career Brindley studied at University of Manchester in the laboratory of Sir Lawrence Bragg and Reginald W. James, where he obtained an BSc and an MSc in crystallography in 1928. He then moved to University of Leeds, obtaining a PhD in physics in 1933. He subsequently became a Lecturer and a Reader in X-ray physics at Leeds. Until 1945, his research focused on X-ray scattering in metals and its use in studying their ...
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George Hammell Cook
1818 - 1889 (71 years)
George Hammell Cook was the state geologist of New Jersey and vice president of Rutgers College. His geological survey of New Jersey became the predecessor for the U.S. Geological Survey. Biography He was born in Hanover Township, New Jersey, on January 5, 1818, to John Cook and Sarah Munn. He married Mary Halsey Thomas on March 23, 1846. He served as the principal of The Albany Academy in Albany, New York from 1850 to 1852.
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Samuel Allport
1816 - 1897 (81 years)
Samuel Allport was an English petrologist. Life He was born in Birmingham and educated in that city. Although occupied in business during the greater portion of his life, his leisure was given to geological studies, and when residing for a short period in Bahia, South America, he made observations on the geology, published by the Geological Society in 1860. His chief work was in microscopic petrology, to the study of which he was attracted by the investigations of Dr. Henry Sorby; and he became one of the pioneers of this branch of geology, preparing his own rock-sections with remarkable sk...
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James E. Talmage
1862 - 1933 (71 years)
James Edward Talmage was an English chemist, geologist, and religious leader who served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1911 until his death.
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Hjalmar Uggla
1908 - 1983 (75 years)
Hjalmar Frederik Karl Uggla was a Polish soil scientist, professor, and head of the Department of Soil Science at the Higher Agricultural School in Olsztyn . During World War II, he was a member of a Polish resistance movement. He was also awarded the Righteous Among the Nations prize.
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Erich Haarmann
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
Erich Haarmann was a German geologist known for his tectonic theories. In a 1930 publication Haarmann wrote in detail about his oscillation theory to explain movements, structure and relief in Earth's crust.
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Carl Fredrik Kolderup
1868 - 1942 (74 years)
Carl Fredrik Kolderup was a Norwegian geologist. He was a professor at the University of Bergen and curator at Bergen Museum. Biography He was born in Bergen, Norway. He was as a son of tailor Niels Chrispinus Kolderup and Rasmine Margrethe Olsen. He was the father of geologist and politician Niels-Henrik Kolderup.
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Alan Grant Ogilvie
1887 - 1954 (67 years)
Alan Grant Ogilvie OBE FRSE FRSGS was a Scottish geographer after whom the University of Edinburgh's Ogilvie Chair in Human Geography is named. He was President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society from 1946 to 1950 and President of the Institute of British Geographers from 1951 to 1952.
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Heinrich Ries
1871 - 1951 (80 years)
Heinrich Ries was an American economic geologist, born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Columbia University and at the University of Berlin. He was employed principally at Cornell University, initially as an instructor , as an assistant professor , as professor, and as head of the geological department . Professor Ries made numerous reports on clay published by the United States Geological Survey, the New York State Geological Survey and the Canadian Geological Survey.
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George Hunt Barton
1852 - 1933 (81 years)
George Hunt Barton was an American geologist, arctic explorer, and college professor. He was an alumnus and faculty member in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as the director of the Teachers' School of Science in Boston and was the founding president of the Boston Children's Museum. He was an explorer of Greenland with Robert E. Peary in 1896, and in 1916 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Charles Henry Smyth Jr.
1866 - 1937 (71 years)
Charles Henry Smyth Jr. was an American geologist. Born to a prominent family in Upstate New York, he studied geology at Columbia University before becoming a professor of geology at Hamilton College and Princeton University. At Princeton he strengthened the Department of Geology's graduate program.
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Theodore Salisbury Woolsey Jr.
1880 - 1933 (53 years)
Theodore Salisbury Woolsey Jr. was a United States Forest Service employee, forestry researcher, professor at Yale University and author of books and articles related to forestry and forest regulation.
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John Duer Irving
1874 - 1918 (44 years)
John Duer Irving was an American geologist. He was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He graduated from Columbia University in 1896 and 1899. He was a member of the 11th Engineers, U.S. Army during World War I and died in France on July 20 or 26, 1918, of pneumonia.
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John Downie Falconer
1876 - 1947 (71 years)
John Downie Falconer FRSE FGS FRGS was a Scottish geologist and geographer linked to colonial Africa. Life He was born in the village of Midlothian, on 1 November 1876, the son of John Falconer and Sophia Downie. He attended Glasgow University graduating MA in 1897 and receiving a doctorate in 1906.
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Alexander Geddes
1885 - 1970 (85 years)
Alexander Ebenezer McLean Geddes OBE FRSE was a Scottish meteorologist and physicist. He was generally known as Sandy Geddes and nicknamed Siccer Sandy . Life He was born in Fordyce, Aberdeenshire on 8 February 1885 and educated at Fordyce Academy. He then attended the University of Aberdeen graduating with a MA in 1906. In 1908 he became an assistant lecturer at the university teaching natural philosophy . He received a doctorate in 1913.
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Ubbo Emmius
1547 - 1625 (78 years)
Ubbo Emmius was a German historian and geographer. Early life Ubbo Emmius was born on 5 December 1547 in Greetsiel, East Frisia. From the ages of 9 to 18 Emmius studied in a Latin school, before having to leave on the death of his father, a Lutheran preacher. After studying at Rostock, at the age of 30, Emmius took classes in Geneva with Theodorus Beza, a Calvinist who influenced Emmius greatly.
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