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Carl Albert Oppel

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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CARL ALBERT OPPEL (1831-1865), German palaeontologist, was born at Hohenheim in Wurttemberg, on the 19th of December 1831. After studying mineralogy and geology at Stuttgart, he entered the university of Tubingen, where he graduated Ph.D. in 1853. Here he came under the influence of Quenstedt and devoted his special attention to the fossils of the Jurassic system. With this object he examined in detail during 1854 and the following year the succession of strata in England, France and Germany and determined the various palaeontological stages or zones characterized by special guide-fossils, in most cases ammonites. The results of his researches were published in his great work Die Juraformation Englands, Frankreichs and des siidwestlichen Deutschlands (1856-1858). In 1858 he became an assistant in the Palaeontological Museum at Munich. In 1860 he became professor of palaeontology in the university at Munich, and in 1861 director of the Palaeontological Collection. There he continued his labours on the Jurassic fauna, describing new species of crustacea, ammonites, &c. To him also we owe the establishment of the Tithonian stage, for strata (mainly equivalent to the English Portland and Purbeck Beds) that occur on the borders of Jurassic and Cretaceous. Of his later works the most important was Paldontologische Mittheilungen aus dem Museum des Konigl. Bayer. Staats. (1862-1865). He died at Munich on the 23rd of December 1865.