Australian Stratigraphy and Palaeontology: the nineteenth century French contribution

Abstract

D’Orbigny and numerous French-speaking geologists studied Australian fossils and contributed to the growth of Australian Stratigraphy. Significant collections were made to 1850 by French expeditions to the Pacific. Experience in France enhanced the Australian geological work of foreigners including P.E. Strzelecki and Ludwig Leichhardt. From 1840, contacts were maintained between Rev. W.B. Clarke and French-speaking palaeontologists, including P.E. de Verneuil and particularly L.E. De Koninck (Belgian), culminating in his classic Recherches (1876–1877). Australian Stratigraphy established its essential difference from European with the confirmation of a Late Palaeozoic glaciation in the late 1880s and the development of the Gondwanaland concept.