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Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey |
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Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey (mûr`kĭsən), 1792–1871, British geologist. He served in the Napoleonic Wars but after the peace turned his attention to science. In the 1830s he undertook the investigation of previously undifferentiated rock strata in Wales and England; as a result of his researches he established the Silurian Silurian period [from the Silures, ancient tribe of S Wales, where the period was first studied; named by the British geologist R. I. Murchison], third period of the Paleozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, table) lasting from 405 to 435 million years
..... Click the link for more information. as a new geologic system and described it in The Silurian System (2 vol. in 1, 1839). With Adam Sedgwick Sedgwick, Adam, 1785–1873, English geologist. He was a professor at Cambridge from 1818. His most important work was a study, made with R. I. Murchison, of the rock formation of Devonshire, which they named the Devonian system. ..... Click the link for more information. he collaborated on the establishment of the Devonian system, and after carrying on an extended survey in Russia (1840–44) he also defined and named the Permian period Permian period [from Perm, Russia], sixth and last period of the Paleozoic era (see Geologic Timescale, table) from 250 to 290 million years ago. Historical Geology of the Period The Lower Permian ..... Click the link for more information. . His last investigations were directed toward the geology of the Scottish Highlands. In 1846 he was knighted, and in 1855 he was appointed director-general of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. Murchison endowed a chair of geology and mineralogy at the Univ. of Edinburgh. He revised and modified the material of his earlier work in Siluria (1854) and collaborated on the Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains (1845). BibliographySee biography by Sir Archibald Geikie (2 vol., 1875). Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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