Auguste Bravard | |
|---|---|
 portrait of Auguste Bravard | |
| Born | 18 June 1803 Issoire, Puy-de-Dôme |
| Died | 28 March 1861 (aged 57) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology |
| Notes | |
(Pierre Joseph) Auguste Bravard (18 June 1803 – 28 March 1861) [1] [2] was a French mining engineer turned palaeontologist. He hunted fossils in the Vaucluse, Allier and his native Puy de Dôme. [3]
Bravard emigrated to Argentina in the winter of 1852–53 and was a long-term resident in Buenos Aires. He unearthed and studied mammalian fossils, some of which, like the skull of Mesotherium , were sent back to the Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Paris. Pleistocene mammal fossils purchased from Bravard are also in the Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, London, transferred from the British Museum, [4] which had purchased them from Bravard in 1854. [5] Bravard, who became director of the natural history museum in Paraná, upheld geological theories contrary to those of Charles Darwin. [b]
From Buenos Aires, he explored in Bahía Blanca, resulting in his Mapa geológico y topográfico de los alrededores de Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires (1857). [7] He also explored the Paraná basin and the pampas.
Periodically Bravard lithographed his letters and distributed them to geologists in Europe. [8]
After his unexpected death in the Mendoza earthquake of 1861, his remarkable collection of fossils disappeared. At the turn of the twentieth century, an auction of unclaimed crates by the Buenos Aires customs office revealed the collection, which was handed over to the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires. [9]
At Issoire, he is commemorated in the rue August Bravard.
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known today for his association with Charles Darwin and as the author of Principles of Geology (1830–33), which presented to a wide public audience the idea that the earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities. The philosopher William Whewell dubbed this gradualistic view "uniformitarianism" and contrasted it with catastrophism, which had been championed by Georges Cuvier and was better accepted in Europe. The combination of evidence and eloquence in Principles convinced a wide range of readers of the significance of "deep time" for understanding the earth and environment.
Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province and the province's capital until it was federalized in 1880. Since then, in spite of bearing the same name, the province does not include Buenos Aires city, though it does include all other parts of the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The capital of the province is the city of La Plata, founded in 1882.
The Pampas, also known as the Pampas Plain, are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than 1,200,000 square kilometres (460,000 sq mi) and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. The vast plains are a natural region, interrupted only by the low Ventana and Tandil hills, near Bahía Blanca and Tandil (Argentina), with a height of 1,300 m (4,265 ft) and 500 m (1,640 ft), respectively.
Bahía Blanca is a city by the Atlantic Ocean, in the southwest province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the seat of government of the Bahía Blanca Partido, with 301,572 inhabitants according to the 2010 census [INDEC]. Bahía Blanca is the principal city in the Greater Bahía Blanca area.
Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister was a German Argentine zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, botanist, and coleopterologist. He served as a professor at the University of Halle, headed the museum there and published the Handbuch der Entomologie (1832–1855) before moving to Argentina where he worked until his death.
Florentino Ameghino was an Argentine naturalist, paleontologist, anthropologist and zoologist, whose fossil discoveries on the Argentine Pampas, especially on Patagonia, rank with those made in the western United States during the late 19th century. Along with his two brothers – Carlos and Juan – Florentino Ameghino was one of the most important founding figures in South American paleontology.
Macrauchenia is an extinct genus of large ungulate native to South America from the Pliocene or Middle Pleistocene to the end of the Late Pleistocene. It is a member of the extinct order Litopterna, a group of South American native ungulates distinct from the two orders which contain all living ungulates which had been present in South America since the early Cenozoic, over 60 million years ago, prior to the arrival of living ungulates in South America around 2.5 million years ago as part of the Great American Interchange. The bodyform of Macrauchenia has been described as similar to a camel, being one of the largest-known litopterns, with an estimated body mass of around 1 tonne. The genus gives its name to its family, Macraucheniidae, which like Macrauchenia typically had long necks and three-toed feet, as well as a retracted nasal region, which in Macrauchenia manifests as the nasal opening being on the top of the skull between the eye sockets. This has historically been argued to correspond to the presence of a tapir-like proboscis, though recent authors suggest a moose-like prehensile lip or a saiga antelope-like nose to filter dust are more likely.
LRA Radio Nacional, also known as Radio Nacional Argentina, is the Argentine national radio station, and part of the national public media system. It started transmitting in 1937 as LRA Radio del Estado and changed its name to the current one in 1957. Since 1949, National Radio is also in charge of the Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior, an international service that broadcasts in numerous languages.
The Humid Pampas is an extensive ecoregion of flat, fertile grassland of loessic origin in Argentina. It has a precipitation average of 900 mm per year, in contrast with the Dry Pampas to the west, which average less than 700 mm.
The coat of arms of the City of Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, made under her newest commander, Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy had thought of the advantages of having someone onboard who could investigate geology, and sought a naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson, and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had made his name as a geologist and fossil collector, and the publication of his journal gave him wide renown as a writer.
Scalabrinitherium is an extinct genus of mammals of the family Macraucheniidae. Fossils of this animal were found among the fossils of prehistoric xenarthrans in the Ituzaingó Formation of Argentina.
Punta Alta is a city in Argentina, about 25 kilometers southeast of Bahía Blanca. It has a population of 57,293. It is the capital ("cabecera") of the Coronel Rosales Partido. It was founded on 2 July 1898.
Carlos Ciriaco Ameghino was an Argentine paleontologist and explorer who accompanied his brother Florentino Ameghino throughout Argentina searching for fossils.
Geological Observations on South America is a book written by the English naturalist Charles Darwin. The book was published in 1846, and is based on his travels during the second voyage of HMS Beagle, commanded by captain Robert FitzRoy. HMS Beagle arrived in South America to map out the coastlines and islands of the region for the British Navy. On the journey, Darwin collected fossils and plants, and recorded the continent's geological features.
Juan (Jean) Brèthes, also known as Frère Judulien Marie or Juan Brethes was an Argentine scientist, naturalist, entomologist, ornithologist, zoologist and geologist. He was the first entomologist of the National Museum, today known as the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences. He was a close collaborator of Florentino Ameghino, and translated several of his works into French. Thanks to his intense activity, he systematized a large number of Latin American insect species. He was a precursor in the fight against agricultural pests at a time when insecticides had not been developed to combat them.
John Lycett (1804-1882) was an English paleontologist. He was a physician at Minchinhampton from c.1840-1860. In 1860 he moved to Scarborough in Yorkshire and the "wide dispersal of his magnificent collection of fossils from this area [quarries on Minchinhampton Common ] commenced". His monograph on the Great Oolite is one of just a handful of monographs describing and illustrating the British Jurassic gastropod and bivalve fauna.
Blanca Bay is a bay of the Argentine Sea located in the transition between Pampas and Patagonia. This bay is a deep and narrow sea inlet on the continent. It is located in the southwest of the province of Buenos Aires, in the center-east of Argentina. Its name gave its own name to the most important city near its banks, the city of Bahía Blanca.
Caiman australis is an extinct species of caiman described in 1858 on the basis of a left maxilla that was collected from the Upper Miocene age Ituzaingó Formation of Entre Rios, Argentina.
The research history of Palaeotherium is complicated given its extensive fossil record and lengthy taxonomic history, with the earliest record of its fossils dating back to 1782 when the French physicist Robert de Lamanon described the skull of what the naturalist Georges Cuvier described as belonging to P. medium in 1804. Cuvier initially recognized its affinities to tapirs and rhinoceroses and classified fossil material to three different species based on size. From 1805 to 1824, he established additional species based on the morphologies of postcranial remains and drew a reconstructed skeleton of P. magnum in 1824. The fossil mammal genus was the fourth to have been recognized with undisputed taxonomic authority. Palaeotherium had since been a subject of significant attention by many other palaeontologists, and it was gradually revised to be recognized as taxonomically distinct from its other perissodactyl relatives.
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