science · 05 February 1770 · 254 years ago
birth
Born 5 Feb 1770; died 7 Oct 1847 at age 77.
French mineralogist, geologist, and naturalist, who first arranged the geologic formations of the Tertiary Period (from 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago) in chronological order and described them. He made the first systematic study of trilobites, an extinct group of arthropods that became important in determining the chronology of Paleozoic strata (from 540 to 245 million years ago). He helped introduce the principle of geologic dating by the identification of distinctive fossils found in each stratum and noted that the Paris formations had been created under alternate freshwater and saltwater conditions. From 1800, he was also director of the Sèvres Porcelain Factory, improving ceramics and enameling, and made Sèvres the leading European factory of its kind.
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