Jean de Charpentier
German-Swiss geologist
Jean de Charpentier or Johann von Charpentier (8 December 1786 , 12 December 1855) was a German-Swiss geologist who studied Swiss glaciers. He was born in Freiberg, Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire and died in Bex, Switzerland.
01Life
After following in his father's footsteps as a mining engineer he excelled in his field while working in the copper mines in the Pyrénées and salt mines in western Switzerland.
In 1818 a catastrophic event changed his life focus when an ice-dammed lake in the Val de Bagnes above Martigny broke through its barrier, causing many deaths. Afterwards, he made extensive field studies in the Alps. Using evidence of erratic boulders and moraines and drawing on the works of Goethe, he hypothesized that Swiss glaciers had once been much more extensive. These boulders, characteristic of glaciers, were strewn as if they were brought there by glaciers that no longer existed. Even so, he wasn't sure how glaciers first formed, moved, or how they disappeared. His ideas were later taken up and developed by Louis Agassiz.
02Legacy
The glacier of Charpentierbreen in Nathorst Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard is named after him.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Jean de Charpentier”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Johann von Charpentier.jpg by Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain
- Carte Géologique des Pyrénées MHNT.jpg by Jean de Charpentier (editor) Frederique GAILLARD /Didier Descouens (photographer), CC BY-SA 4.0
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