Melchior Neumayr (24 October 1845 in Munich – 29 January 1890) was an palaeontologist from Austria-Hungary and the son of Max von Neumayr, a Bavarian Minister of State.
Life and work
editNeumayr 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 with a Ph.D. After some experience in field-geology under KW 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]
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.[2][3]
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).[4]
References
edit- ^ "Melchior Neumayr". Geological Magazine. 7 (5): 238–240. 1890. doi:10.1017/S0016756800185401. ISSN 0016-7568.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Heinz, Tobien (1981). "Neumayr, Melchior". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 10. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 29–30.
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Neumayr, Melchior". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in theExternal links
edit- 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