Melchior Neumayr
Melchior Neumayr (24 October 1845 – 29 January 1890) was an palaeontologist from Austria-Hungary and the son of Max von Neumayr, a Bavarian Minister of State. He specialized on the Jurassic and Cretaceous of the Alps. Neumayr introduced the concept of the Tethys sea in 1885, calling it the Jurassic seaway. The name "Tethys" was given by his father-in-law Eduard Suess.
Life and work
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Neumayr was born in Munich but grew up in Stuttgart where his father was an ambassador. He went to the Munich Gymnasium and then started with law studies at the University of Munich but gave it up for the natural sciences which he completed at Heidelberg studying under Beneke and Robert Bunsen. He received a doctorate in 1867. After some experience in field-geology under Karl Wilhelm von Gümbel, he joined the Austrian geological survey in 1868. Four years later he returned to Heidelberg, but in 1873 he was appointed professor of palaeontology in Vienna, and occupied this post until his death.[1][2][3]
His more detailed researches pertained to the Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites and to Tertiary freshwater molluscs; in these studies he sought to trace the descent of the species.[4][5]
Based on the gastropod fauna, Neumayr established the idea of what he called a Jurassic seaway extending from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia (also called as the central Mediterranean) which had flooded wide tracts of Eurasia. This was named by Suess in 1893 as the Tethys, named after the sister of Okeanos, the Greek ocean god.[6]
He dealt also with the zones of climate during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. He postulated the idea that during those periods, equatorial marine fauna differed from that of the two temperate zones, and that the marine fauna of the latter two zones also differed from that of the arctic zone, much as the faunas of similar zones differ from each other in the present day; see his Über klimatische Zonen während der Jura und Kreidezeit (Denkschr. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1883); he was author also of Erdgeschichte (2 vols, 1887); and Die Stämme des Thierreiches (vol. 1 only, 1889).[7]
Neumayr married Paula, daughter of his colleague Eduard Suess in 1879 and they had three daughters. He was a keen climber and was a member of the Deutscher und Oesterreich Alpin Verein but gave up membership in 1872 and in later life heart problems prevented him from outdoor activity but he continued to write in the Mittheilungen of the Deutscher und Oesterreich Alpin Verein.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Melchior Neumayr". Geological Magazine. 7 (5): 238–240. 1890. doi:10.1017/S0016756800185401. ISSN 0016-7568.
- ^ Edlinger, Karl (2006). "Die beziehung Melchior Neumayrs zur Deszendenztheorie Darwins" (PDF). Jahrbuch der geologischen bundesanstalt. 146 (3–4): 163–172.
- ^ Nathorst, A. G. (1890). "Melchior Neumayr". Geologiska Föreningen i Stockholm Förhandlingar. 12 (2): 130–132. doi:10.1080/11035899009442250. ISSN 0016-786X.
- ^ Matthias Svojtka; Johannes Seidl; Michel Coster Heller (2009). "Frühe Evolutionsgedanken in der Paläontologie. Materialien zur Korrespondenz zwischen Charles Robert Darwin und Melchior Neumayr" (PDF). Jahrbuch der Geologischen Bundesanstalt (in German). 149 (2/3). Vienna: 357–374. Archived from the original (with English abstract) on July 6, 2011.
- ^ Blanford, WT (1890). "Proceedings". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. 46 (1–4): 54–56. doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1890.046.01-04.02. S2CID 219232465.
- ^ Celâl Şengör, A. M. (1987). "Tectonics of the Tethysides: Orogenic Collage Development in a Collisional Setting". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 15: 213–244.
- ^ Heinz, Tobien (1981). "Neumayr, Melchior". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 10. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 29–30.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Neumayr, Melchior". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
External links
[edit]- Erdegesichte (1886)
- Works by Melchior Neumayr at Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Works by Melchior Neumayr at Open Library
- Works by or about Melchior Neumayr at the Internet Archive
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