Charles Lapworth
Charles Lapworth (September 20, 1842 – March 13, 1920) was an English geologist.
Born at Faringdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), and trained as a teacher, Lapworth settled in the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area. He married during 1869 and stayed in the area. Eventually, through patient mapping and innovative use of index fossil analysis, Lapworth showed that what was thought to be a thick sequence of Silurian rocks was in fact a much thinner series of rocks repeated by faulting and folding.
Charles Lapworth completed this pioneering research in the Southern Uplands while still employed as a school master, but he was then appointed as the first Professor of Geology at Mason's College, which later became the University of Birmingham, and he taught there until his retirement. He is best known for pioneering faunal analysis of Silurian beds by means of index fossils, especially graptolites, and his proposal (eventually adopted) that the beds between the Cambrian beds of north Wales and the Silurian beds of South Wales should be assigned to a new geological period: the Ordovician. This proposal resolved a controversy concerning the age of the strata in question. Lapworth received numerous awards for his research work, while for teaching he used the English Midlands as a setting for demonstrating the fieldwork techniques he had pioneered in his own research.
Following his researches in the Southern Uplands Charles Lapworth also devoted time to mapping near Durness in Scotland's northwest highlands and was first to propose the controversial theory that here older rocks were found lying above younger, suggesting complex folding or faulting as a cause. Later Peach and Horne were dispatched to the area and their monumental memoir proved Lapworth correct. In the English Midlands his research involved important work in Shropshire and the demonstration that Cambrian rocks underlay the Carboniferous rocks between Nuneaton and Atherstone.
Awards
Lapworth received many awards for his work and contributions to geology. In 1891, he received the greatest scientific accolade when presented the Gold Medal of the Royal Society. While in 1899, he received the highest award of the Geological Society of London, the Wollaston Medal, in recognition of his outstanding work in the Southern Uplands, and Northwest Highlands of Scotland.
Lapworth Museum
Papers relating to Charles Lapworth can be found at the University of Birmingham Special Collections. The University of Birmingham also maintains the Lapworth Museum within the Aston Webb building on the main Edgbaston campus. The Lapworth Archive, housed in the museum, contains a remarkably complete record of all areas of his research work and teaching.
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