Lapworth, Charles

▪ British geologist

born Sept. 30, 1842, Faringdon, Berkshire, Eng.

died March 13, 1920, Birmingham

      English geologist who proposed what came to be called the Ordovician Period (505 to 438 million years old) of geologic strata.

      In 1864 Lapworth became a schoolmaster at Galashiels and began his studies of the early Paleozoic (570 to 245 million years old) strata of the Southern Uplands. He used the occurrence of graptolite fossils to establish the order of these strata and in 1873 published a paper that detailed his findings and opened the way for similar stratigraphic research over the world. In 1879 Lapworth proposed that a complex series of strata (considered to be Lower Silurian by Sir Roderick I. Murchison and to be Upper Cambrian by Adam Sedgwick) was in fact a separate system. He proposed that the series of rocks be called the Ordovician System.

      From 1881 to 1913 he held the newly established chair of geology and physiography at Mason College, Birmingham University. In 1882 he began excursions into the Durness–Eireboll region of the northwest Highlands, where he conducted a detailed study of the main geologic features. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1888.

* * *