Carl Albert Oppel (19 December 1831 – 23 December 1865)
History
He was born at
Hohenheim in Württemberg, on 19 December 1831. He first went to the University of Tübingen, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in 1853. The results of his work was published in
Die Juraformation Englands, Frankreichs und des südwestlichen Deutschlands (1856–1858). He went to the Palaeontological Museum at
Munich in 1858 and became an assistant there. It was in 1860 that he became the Professor of Palaeontology at the University of Munich. Then, a year later, he became the director of the Palaeontological Collection. Of his later works, it can be said that the most important was
Paläontologische Mittheilungen aus dem Museum des Königlichen Bayerischen Staates (1862–1865). He died on 23 December 1865 at the age of 34. The
wrinkle ridge Dorsum Oppel on the Moon is named after him,
as is the fossil
prawn genus
Albertoppelia.
Studies
Oppel devoted his life to the study of fossils and the examination of the strata of the
Jurassic period deposits. He is considered to have founded the study of zone
stratigraphy and the use of
, a term which he created, to compare the different strata. He also established the
Tithonian stage, for strata (mainly equivalent to the English Portland and
Purbeck Group Beds) that occur on the borders of
Jurassic and
Cretaceous. He was awarded the Chair of Paleontology at the University of Munich.
See also
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