Eduard Suess

Born in London, Suess developed his career in Vienna. In 1852 he became an assistant at the imperial mineralogical collection. Fossils, including graptolites, and the strata containing them supplied evidence for comparing regional geological histories.

He received an extraordinary professorship in palaeontology at Vienna in 1857 and became a full professor of geology in 1867. He entered academic employment without following the usual doctoral route and later received an honorary doctorate.

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In Die Entstehung der Alpen (1875), Suess investigated mountain building and deformed strata. His later Das Antlitz der Erde compared rocks, mountain belts and changes in land and sea across continents.

These works preceded plate tectonics. Their comparative observations and questions about mountain belts, marine transgressions and former land connections were influential, while their proposed causes belong to the theoretical setting of their time.

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Suess also applied geology to urban water supply. Serving on Vienna’s water commission from 1863, he supported a system drawing water from springs in the Alps and helped assess its geological basis.

The first mountain-spring pipeline opened on 24 October 1873. Its development connected the study of water sources and rock formations with engineering routes and public health.

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Suess introduced the term biosphere in 1875. Vladimir Vernadsky subsequently made the geological and chemical activity of living organisms central to a developed theory of the biosphere.

The origin of the name and the later biogeochemical research programme therefore represent related contributions made in different scientific settings.

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