Adam Sedgwick
Sign in to saveEnglish geologist (1785–1873)
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1785-03-22 ) 22 March 1785, Dent , Yorkshire , England
- Died
- 27 January 1873 (1873-01-27) (aged 87), Cambridge , England
- Alma mater
- Trinity College, Cambridge
- Known for
- Classification of Cambrian rocks ; opposition to evolution and natural selection
- Awards
- Wollaston Medal (1833), Copley Medal (1863)
- Fields
- Geology
- Institutions
- Trinity College, Cambridge
- Academic advisors
- Thomas Jones , John Dawson
- Notable students
- George Peacock , William Hopkins , Charles Darwin , Joseph Jukes
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Adam
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Kingdom of Great Britain
- Place of birth
- Dent
- Place of death
- Cambridge
- Employer
- University of Cambridge
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Religion
- Anglicanism
- Award
- Wollaston Medal
- Doctoral advisor
- John Dawson
- Student of
- John Dawson
- Doctoral student
- William Hopkins
- Field of work
- geology
- Image
- Adam Sedgwick.jpg
- Residence
- England
Show 9 more facts
- student
- Charles Darwin
- name in native language
- Adam Sedgwick
- described by source
- The Nuttall Encyclopædia
- date of birth
- 1785-03-22
- date of death
- 1873-01-27
- Commons gallery
- Adam Sedgwick
- Commons category
- Adam Sedgwick
- different from
- Adam Sedgwick
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
Adam Sedgwick FRS (/ˈsɛdʒwɪk/; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period.
Though he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, Sedgwick was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Adam Sedgwick” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.