The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Earth Sciences,
#3901
Thomas Sterry Hunt
1826 - 1892 (66 years)
Thomas Sterry Hunt was an American geologist and chemist. Biography Hunt was born at Norwich, Connecticut. He lost his father when twelve years old, and had to earn his own livelihood. In the course of two years he found employment in a printing office, in an apothecary shop, in a book store and as a clerk. He became interested in natural science, and especially in chemical and medical studies, and in 1845 he was elected a member of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists at Yale—a body which four years later became the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Petrus Plancius
1552 - 1622 (70 years)
Petrus Plancius was a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church.
Go to Profile#3903
Arthur Philemon Coleman
1852 - 1939 (87 years)
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian geologist and academic. Biography Born in Lachute, Quebec, the son of Rev. Francis Coleman and Emmeline Maria Adams, he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1876 and Master of Arts in 1880 from Victoria College in Cobourg, Ontario. He received a Ph.D. at the University of Breslau in 1881.
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John Farey Sr.
1766 - 1826 (60 years)
John Farey Sr. was an English geologist and writer best known for Farey sequence, a mathematical construct that is named after him. Biography Youth and early career Farey was born on 24 September 1766 at Woburn in Bedfordshire to John Farey and his second wife, Rachel , a Wesleyan Methodist. He was educated at Halifax in Yorkshire, and showed such aptitude in mathematics, drawing and surveying, that he was brought under the notice of John Smeaton .
Go to Profile#3905
Hjalmar Sjögren
1856 - 1922 (66 years)
Sten Anders Hjalmar Sjögren was a Swedish geologist and mineralogist. Biography Sten Anders Hjalmar Sjögren became associate professor of mineralogy and geology at Uppsala University from 1882-84. He studied in Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1883.
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Newton Horace Winchell
1839 - 1914 (75 years)
Newton Horace Winchell was an American geologist chiefly notable for his six-volume work The Geology of Minnesota: Final Report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, which was prepared by Winchell and his assistants. A bibliography of his publications by Warren Upham in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America contains almost 300 titles.
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August Emanuel von Reuss
1811 - 1873 (62 years)
August Emanuel Rudolph von Reuss was an Austrian geologist and palaeontologist. Biography Reuss was born on 8 July 1811 in Bílina, Bohemia. He was the son of Franz Ambrosius Reuss and the father of ophthalmologist August Leopold von Reuss . He was educated for the medical profession, graduating in 1834 at the University of Prague, and afterwards practising for fifteen years at the Bílinská Kyselka spa.
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Élisée Reclus
1830 - 1905 (75 years)
Jacques Élisée Reclus was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes , over a period of nearly 20 years . In 1892 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite having been banished from France because of his political activism.
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Ernst Dieffenbach
1811 - 1855 (44 years)
Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach , also known as Ernest Dieffenbach, was a German physician, geologist and naturalist, the first trained scientist to live and work in New Zealand, where he travelled widely under the auspices of the New Zealand Company, returning in 1841–42 and publishing in English his Travels in New Zealand in 1843.
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William Whitehead Watts
1860 - 1947 (87 years)
Prof William Whitehead Watts FRS HFRSE FGS FMS LLD was a British geologist. Life He was born near Broseley in Shropshire, the eldest of two sons of Isaac Watts, but then a music master, and his wife, Maria Whitehead, daughter of a farmer.
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William Hughes
1818 - 1876 (58 years)
William Hughes FRGS was an English geographer, cartographer, author and academic. Life In early life Hughes was in business as an engraver in Pentonville, London. In 1840 he became a lecturer at St John's College, Battersea.
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Antonio D'Achiardi
1839 - 1902 (63 years)
Antonio D'Achiardi was an Italian geologist and mineralogist known for his mineralogical studies of Tuscany. He was the father of mineralogist , and the artist, Pietro D'Achiardi. In 1859 he received his doctorate in sciences from the University of Pisa, afterwards working as an assistant for chemistry . Three months after this appointment, he lost the use of his left eye due to a laboratory accident involving nitric acid. He subsequently abandoned his career in chemistry, and instead devoted his attention to geology and mineralogy, becoming a student of Giuseppe Meneghini. He later became a ...
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Domenico Lovisato
1842 - 1916 (74 years)
Domenico Lovisato was an Italian geologist. He was a very early proponent of the theory of continental drift. Education Domenico Lovisato was born in Isola, in Istria on 12 August 1842, then under Austrian rule. He was the third of five children. His father died when he was very young, leaving the family extremely poor. However, with the help of relatives and family friends he was able to complete his primary and secondary education, enrolling in the University of Padua in 1862 to study mathematics. He was vocal in seeking independence, and was arrested eight times. In 1864 he was tried for high treason, but acquitted for lack of evidence.
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Karl von Seebach
1839 - 1880 (41 years)
Karl Albert Ludwig von Seebach was a German geologist known for his studies in the field of volcanology. He studied geology and paleontology at Breslau as a pupil of Ferdinand von Roemer, with whom he took a scientific journey to Russia. He also studied at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, where he was a student of Heinrich Ernst Beyrich. In 1862 he obtained his doctorate at Göttingen with a thesis on conch-fauna of the Weimar Triassic. In 1870 he became a full professor at Göttingen and subsequently chosen as the first director of the geological-palaeontological institute.
Go to Profile#3915
Otto Mügge
1858 - 1932 (74 years)
Johannes Otto Conrad Mügge was a German mineralogist and crystallographer. From 1875 to 1879 he studied mathematics and sciences at the Technical University of Hannover and at the University of Göttingen. After graduation, he spent three years as an assistant to Harry Rosenbusch at the mineralogical-geological institute of the University of Heidelberg. From 1882 he worked as curator of the mineralogical and geological department at the Natural History Museum in Hamburg, and in 1886 became an associate professor at the academy in Münster. Later on, he served as a full professor at the University of Königsberg, where in 1903/04 he was named dean to the faculty of philosophy.
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Gustav Hellmann
1854 - 1939 (85 years)
Gustav Johann Georg Hellmann or Georg Gustav Hellmann was a German meteorologist. Hellmann was born in Löwen , Prussian Silesia. Since 1907 to 1922, he was the principal of the Preußischen Meteorologischen Institut in Berlin. He died in Berlin.
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Ernst Anton Wülfing
1860 - 1930 (70 years)
Ernst Anton Wülfing was a German mineralogist and petrographer, known for his research on the optical properties of minerals and meteorites. He studied chemistry at Geneva and at Heidelberg as a student of Robert Bunsen, then focused his attention to mineralogy and geology, of which, he studied at Greifswald and Vienna . Afterwards he served as an assistant to Harry Rosenbusch at the University of Heidelberg.
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Hans Georg Wunderlich
1928 - 1974 (46 years)
Hans Georg Wunderlich was a German geologist. Life and work Wunderlich studied geology in Bonn and Göttingen. In 1952 he was awarded his doctorate in Göttingen and from 1957 he taught in Göttingen. In 1963 he became a professor in Göttingen, in 1970 professor of geology and palaeontology in Stuttgart.
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Ljudmila Dolar Mantuani
1906 - 1988 (82 years)
Ljudmila Dolar Mantuani, a Slovenian petrologist , was born 5 July 1906, in Celje, Slovenia, and died 22 September 1988, in Toronto, Canada. She was the first female assistant professor of petrography in Yugoslavia.
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Alexei Alexeivich Bogdanov
1907 - 1971 (64 years)
Alexei Alexeivich Bogdanov was a Soviet geologist and specialist on tectonics. After producing a tectonic map of the USSR, he began a collaboration to produce a tectonic map of Europe which was produced in sixteen sheets in 1964. A son, also named Alexei , became a noted molecular biologist. The mineral Bogdanovite is named in his honour.
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Heinrich Ernst Beyrich
1815 - 1896 (81 years)
Heinrich Ernst Beyrich was a German palaeontologist. Life Born in Berlin, he was educated at the university in that city, and afterwards at Bonn, where he studied under Georg August Goldfuss and Johann Jakob Nöggerath. He obtained his degree of Ph.D. in 1837 at Berlin, and was subsequently employed in the mineralogical museum of the university, becoming director of the palaeontological collection in 1857, and director of the museum in 1875.
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Johannes Gabriel Granö
1882 - 1956 (74 years)
Johannes Gabriel Granö was a Finnish geographer, chiefly remembered as a professor of three universities and an explorer of Siberia and Mongolia. He is also noted for his pioneering studies on landscape geography, and his book Pure Geography. Granö was a professor in universities of Tartu, Helsinki and Turku.
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John Ogilby
1600 - 1676 (76 years)
John Ogilby was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer, and his version of the Fables of Aesop.
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Eduard Pechuël-Loesche
1840 - 1913 (73 years)
Moritz Eduard Pechuël-Loesche, , was a German naturalist, geographer, ethnologist, painter, traveler, author, plant collector and Professor of Geography in Jena and Erlangen. Eduard was the eldest son of Ferdinand Moritz Pechuël, an innkeeper and mill owner, and Wilhelmine Lösche.
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William Bullock Clark
1860 - 1917 (57 years)
William Bullock Clark , was an American geologist. Early life William Bullock Clark was born on December 15, 1860, at Brattleboro, Vermont, to Helen and Barna Atherton Clark. Clark had private tutors and graduated from Brattleboro High School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College in 1884. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Munich in 1887. Clark graduated from Amherst College with a Doctor of Laws in 1908. He also spent time in the field doing geographical surveys in Great Britain and Prussia.
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Herbert E. Gregory
1869 - 1952 (83 years)
Herbert Ernest Gregory was a Yale University geologist well known for his early 20th-century explorations of the Colorado Plateau in Arizona and Utah. One of his most important works is Colorado Plateau Region, published by the United States Geological Survey on the occasion of the United States sponsoring the 16th International Geological Congress.
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Felix Karl Ludwig Machatschki
1895 - 1970 (75 years)
Karl Ludwig Felix Machatschki was an Austrian mineralogist. He was born in Arnfels in Styria, Austria. He studied at the University of Graz, obtaining his habilitation in 1925; in 1927 he joined the group of Victor Goldschmidt in Oslo for one year. In 1930 he was appointed as a professor at the University of Tübingen. He changed university twice, first in 1941 to the University of Munich and finally in 1944 to the University of Vienna.
Go to Profile#3928
Arnold Escher von der Linth
1807 - 1872 (65 years)
Arnold Escher von der Linth was a Swiss geologist, the son of Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth . He made the first ascent of the Lauteraarhorn on 8 August 1842 together with Pierre Jean Édouard Desor and Christian Girard, and guides Melchior Bannholzer and Jakob Leuthold.
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Gérard Paul Deshayes
1795 - 1875 (80 years)
Gérard Paul Deshayes was a French geologist and conchologist. Career He was born in Nancy, his father at that time being professor of experimental physics in the École Centrale of the département Meurthe
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Fusakichi Omori
1868 - 1923 (55 years)
was a pioneer Japanese seismologist, second chairman of seismology at the Imperial University of Tokyo and president of the Japanese Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee. Omori is also known for his observation describing the aftershock rate of earthquakes, now known as Omori's law.
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Francis Pettit Bundy
#3932
Edward Orton Sr.
1829 - 1899 (70 years)
Edward Francis Baxter Orton Sr. was a United States geologist, and the first president of The Ohio State University. Biography Orton came from New York State, born in the town of Deposit in Delaware County and raised in the Lake Erie town of Ripley. He entered Hamilton College in 1845, graduating in 1848. He then spent time at Lane Theological Seminary , Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard , and then Andover Theological Seminary. During those times he taught to get income, but was interested in entering the ministry. He was ordained in 1856.
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Doris Schachner
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
Doris Schachner née Korn was the first female German professor for Mineralogy and Honorary Senator of the RWTH Aachen University. Life Schachner studied mineralogy at the universities in Heidelberg, Freiburg i. Br., and Innsbruck. She completed her doctorate at the Heidelberg University in 1928 and she completed her habilitation at the TH Aachen in 1933. From 1933 to 1940, she was a lecturer at the TH Aachen. At the end of the second world war , she worked at the Brno University of Technology. In 1946, she returned to Aachen. In 1948, she became an extraordinary professor at the TH Aachen. From 1949 to 1972, she was an ordinary professor at the TH Aachen.
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A. R. Crook
1864 - 1930 (66 years)
Alja Robinson Crook was an American scientist and academic from Ohio. Crook attended Ohio Wesleyan University and received a Dr. phil. in Munich, Germany in 1892. He was a professor of mineralogy and economic geology at Northwestern University from 1893 to 1906, when he was named Illinois State Geologist. As state geologist, he greatly expanded the state museum.
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Louis Rutten
1884 - 1946 (62 years)
Louis Martin Robert Rutten was a Dutch geologist. In the first part of the twentieth century he mapped large parts of the islands of the Dutch East Indies, Cuba, the Betic Cordilleras and the Dutch Antilles. He was the father of the biologist and geologist Martin Rutten.
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Alexander Aslanikashvili
1916 - 1981 (65 years)
Alexander Aslanikashvili was a Georgian cartographer. Doctor of Geographical Sciences . Corresponding member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences . Professor of the Tbilisi State University and the Chair of Cartography and Geodesy . Director of the Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute of Geography . He developed his theory of cartography, which is called Metacartography.
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Aksel Berg
1893 - 1979 (86 years)
Aksel Ivanovich Berg was a Soviet scientist in radio-frequency engineering and Soviet Navy Admiral, Hero of Socialist Labour. He was a key figure in the introduction of cybernetics to the Soviet Union.
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Gustav von Leonhard
1816 - 1878 (62 years)
Gustav von Leonhard was a German mineralogist and geologist. He was the son of mineralogist Karl Cäsar von Leonhard. He studied mineralogy and related sciences at the University of Heidelberg, receiving his doctorate in 1840. He continued his education in Berlin, and in 1841 obtained his habilitation at Heidelberg. In 1853 he became an associate professor of mineralogy at the University of Heidelberg.
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Charles Peter Berkey
1867 - 1955 (88 years)
Charles Peter Berkey was an American geologist, notable as a founder of the discipline of engineering geology, for his work on the great dams of the 1930s, and as chief geologist on the Gobi Desert expeditions in Mongolia led by Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1920s.
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James Richardson
1809 - 1851 (42 years)
James Richardson was a British explorer known for his expeditions into the Sahel region of the Saharan desert. Richardson was educated for the evangelical ministry. His early training and enterprising temper produced in adult life an ambition to propagate Christianity and suppress the slave trade in Africa. He attached himself to the British Anti-Slavery Society, and under its auspices he went out to Malta, where he took part in the editing of a newspaper and also engaged in the study of the Arabic language and of geography, with a view to systematic exploration.
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Giovanni Antonio Magini
1555 - 1617 (62 years)
Giovanni Antonio Magini was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician. His Life He was born in Padua, and completed studies in philosophy in Bologna in 1579. His father was Pasquale Magini, a citizen of Padua. Dedicating himself to astronomy, in 1582 he wrote Ephemerides coelestium motuum, translated into Italian the following year.
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Otto Erdmannsdörffer
1876 - 1955 (79 years)
Otto Heinrich Erdmannsdörffer was a German mineralogist and petrographer, known for his analysis of rocks and minerals found in the Odenwald, the Black Forest and the Harz Mountains. He was the son of historian Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer.
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Sekiya Seikei
1855 - 1896 (41 years)
, alternatively Sekiya Kiyokage, was a Japanese geologist, one of the first seismologists, influential in establishing the study of seismology in Japan and known for his model showing the motion of an earth-particle during an earthquake.
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Karl August Lossen
1841 - 1893 (52 years)
Karl August Lossen was a German petrologist and geologist. After finishing his studies at the gymnasium of Kreuznach in 1859 Lossen became a mining engineer; he began by two and a half years of practical work, then studied at the Universities of Berlin and Halle, where he graduated in 1866; in the same year he became assistant geologist of the Prussian national geological survey. He began immediately his well-known petrolographic studies of the Harz Mountains, which lasted till his death. In 1870 he became instructor in petrology at the Berlin mining academy, and at the same time lecturer at the university.
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Luis García Sainz
1894 - 1965 (71 years)
Luis García Sáinz was a pioneer of physical geography in Spain. He was the first professor of Geography en la University of Valencia and secretary at the Instituto Juan Sebastián Elcano. His final position was as a professor at the University of Barcelona.
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William John McGee
1853 - 1912 (59 years)
William John McGee, LL.D. was an American inventor, geologist, anthropologist, and ethnologist, born in Farley, Iowa. Biography While largely self-taught, McGee attended a rural one-room schoolhouse north of Farley during the four winter months from about 1858 to 1867. He devoted his early years to reading law and to surveying. He invented and patented several improvements on agricultural implements.
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Petrus Bertius
1565 - 1629 (64 years)
Petrus Bertius was a Flemish philosopher, theologian, historian, geographer and cartographer. Bertius published much in mathematics, and historical and theological works, but he is now best known as cartographer with his edition of the Geographia of Ptolemy , and for its atlas.
Go to Profile#3948
Josef Felix Pompeckj
1867 - 1930 (63 years)
Josef Felix Pompeckj was a German paleontologist and geologist. He was born in Groß-Köllen, Kingdom of Prussia . He studied geology and paleontology at the University of Königsberg, receiving his doctorate in 1890 with the thesis Die Trilobitenfauna der ost- und westpreußischen Diluvialgeschiebe. In 1903 he became an associate professor in Munich, and from 1904 taught classes in geology and mineralogy at the agricultural college in Hohenheim.
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William Russel Buck
#3950
Henrik Munthe
1860 - 1958 (98 years)
Henrik Vilhelm Munthe was a Swedish geologist. Biography Munthe became a student in 1882 and in 1892 a doctor of philosophy and associate professor of geology at Uppsala University, where he was acting professor of mineralogy and geology in 1894–96. In 1898 he was appointed and in 1899 regular geologist at the Swedish Geological Survey . In the years 1904-13 he was secretary of the Geological Society in Stockholm. Munthe received the title of professor in 1917. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1928.
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