Portal:Geography/Featured biography/19

Shen Kuo was a polymathic Chinese scientist and statesman of the Song Dynasty. Excelling in many fields of study and statecraft, he was an astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist, botanist, archaeologist, ethnographer, and cartographer, among other professions and specialties. He was the head official for the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song court, as well as an Assistant Minister of Imperial Hospitality. In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187). Shen Kuo wrote several other books besides the Dream Pool Essays, yet much of the writing in his other books has not survived. Among his other discoveries, Shen discovered the concept of true north in terms of magnetic declination towards the north pole. Shen Kuo devised a geological hypothesis for land formation (geomorphology), based upon findings of inland marine fossils, knowledge of soil erosion, and the deposition of silt. He also proposed a hypothesis of gradual climate change, after observing ancient petrified bamboos that were preserved underground in a dry northern habitat that would not support bamboo growth in his time.