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The Most Famous

GEOLOGISTS from France

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This page contains a list of the greatest French Geologists. The pantheon dataset contains 59 Geologists, 6 of which were born in France. This makes France the birth place of the 4th most number of Geologists behind United States and Germany.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary French Geologists of all time. This list of famous French Geologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu

1. Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu (1750 - 1801)

With an HPI of 54.16, Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu is the most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages on wikipedia.

Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Gratet de Dolomieu usually known as Déodat de Dolomieu (French pronunciation: [deɔda də dɔlɔmjø]; 23 June 1750 – 28 November 1801) was a French geologist. The mineral and the rock dolomite and the largest summital crater on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano were named after him.

Photo of Adolphe d'Archiac

2. Adolphe d'Archiac (1802 - 1868)

With an HPI of 50.14, Adolphe d'Archiac is the 2nd most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Étienne Jules Adolphe Desmier de Saint-Simon, Vicomte d'Archiac (24 September 1802 – 24 December 1868) was a French geologist and paleontologist.

Photo of Édouard Lartet

3. Édouard Lartet (1801 - 1871)

With an HPI of 49.54, Édouard Lartet is the 3rd most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Édouard Lartet (15 April 1801 – 28 January 1871) was a French geologist and paleontologist, and a pioneer of Paleolithic archaeology. He is also known for coining the prehistoric taxon Amphicyon, making it one of the earliest-described fossil carnivorans in the palaeontological record.

Photo of Léon Teisserenc de Bort

4. Léon Teisserenc de Bort (1855 - 1913)

With an HPI of 49.31, Léon Teisserenc de Bort is the 4th most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Léon Philippe Teisserenc de Bort (5 November 1855 in Paris, France – 2 January 1913 in Cannes, France) was a French meteorologist and a pioneer in the field of aerology. Together with Richard Assmann (1845-1918), he is credited as co-discoverer of the stratosphere, as both men announced their discovery during the same time period in 1902. Teisserenc de Bort pioneered the use of unmanned instrumented balloons and was the first to identify the region in the atmosphere around 8-17 kilometers of height where the lapse rate reaches zero, known today as the tropopause.

Photo of Joachim Barrande

5. Joachim Barrande (1799 - 1883)

With an HPI of 48.69, Joachim Barrande is the 5th most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Joachim Barrande (11 August 1799 – 5 October 1883) was a French geologist and palaeontologist.

Photo of Marcel Alexandre Bertrand

6. Marcel Alexandre Bertrand (1847 - 1907)

With an HPI of 46.14, Marcel Alexandre Bertrand is the 6th most famous French Geologist.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Marcel Alexandre Bertrand (2 July 1847 – 13 February 1907) was a French geologist born in Paris. He was the son of mathematician Joseph Louis François Bertrand (1822–1900), and son-in-law to physicist Éleuthère Mascart (1837-1908). He studied at the École Polytechnique, and beginning in 1869 he attended the Ecole des Mines de Paris. From 1877 he carried out geological mapping studies of Provence, the Jura Mountains and the Alps. In 1886, he became an instructor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines, and in 1896 became a member of the Académie des sciences. Bertrand, a founder of modern tectonics, originated an orogenic "wave theory" of mountain-building and introduced the nappe hypothesis (nappe de charriage). His wave theory described a build-up of massive folds of earth taking place over successive geological eras, called the Caledonian, Hercynian and Alpine periods of orogeny. Bertrand later added a fourth event called the Huronian orogeny, which took place 2400 to 2100 million years ago, in Precambrian time. In 1890 he was named president of the Société géologique de France. The Concours de Géologie twice awarded him the Prix Vaillant (1886 and 1890); he also won the Prix Fontannes (of the Société géologique de France) in 1888 and the Prix Petit d'Ormoy in 1893.

Pantheon has 6 people classified as geologists born between 1750 and 1855. Of these 6, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased geologists include Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, Adolphe d'Archiac, and Édouard Lartet. As of April 2022, 1 new geologists have been added to Pantheon including Marcel Alexandre Bertrand.

Deceased Geologists

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Newly Added Geologists (2022)

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Which Geologists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 6 most globally memorable Geologists since 1700.