This document presents brief biographies of nine Catholic palaeontologists: Georgius Agricola, Athanasius Kircher, Nicholas Steno, Joachim Barrande, Abbot Ambrogio Soldani, Pierre Joseph van Beneden, Wilhelm Waagen, Fr Teilhard de Chardin, and Theodore Verhoeven. It summarizes their key contributions to fields like mineralogy, geology, stratigraphy, micro-palaeontology, marine biology, and paleontological discoveries in places like Prague, Tuscany, India, and Indonesia. All nine made significant advances in their study of fossils, rocks, and earth sciences while maintaining their Catholic faith.

1. Catholic Palaeontologists
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2. Palaeontology
This slide set presents a brief biography of the following
palaeontologists who were practicing Catholics:
Georgius Agricola - Father of Mineralogy
Athanasius Kircher - ‘master of a hundred arts’
Nicholas Steno - Father of Geology and Stratigraphy
Joachim Barrande
Abbot Ambrogio Soldani - Father of Micro-palaeontology
Pierre Joseph van Beneden
Wilhelm Waagen
Fr Teilhard de Chardin
Theodore Verhoeven

3. Palaeontology
Georgius Agricola (1494-1555)
Known as the Father of Mineralogy
Studied medicine, chemistry and
physics and wrote a systematic
treatise on mining and extractive
metallurgy in De Re Metallica
He also wrote on rocks, minerals &
fossils in De Natura Fossilium
making fundamental contributions
to structural geology, mineralogy,
and palaeontology

4. Palaeontology
Athansius Kircher (1601-1680)
Jesuit scholar and ‘master of a
hundred arts’ including oriental
studies, medicine and geology
His work on geology included
studies of volcanoes and fossils,
which puzzled him. He understood
that some were the remains of
animals which had turned to stone,
but ascribed others to human
invention or to the spontaneous
generative force of the earth

5. Palaeontology
Blessed Nicholas Steno (1638-1686)
Known as the Father of geology
and stratigraphy
Despite a relatively brief scientific
career, Nicholas Steno's work on
the formation of rock layers and the
fossils they contain was crucial to
the development of modern
geology. The principles he stated
continue to be used today by
geologists and palaeontologists

6. Palaeontology
Joachim Barrande (1799-1883)
Geologist and palaeontologist
He made a detailed study of rocks,
engaging workmen specially to
collect fossils, and in this way he
obtained upwards of 3500 species
of graptolites, brachiopoda,
mollusca, trilobites and fishes.
The district of Prague, Barrandov, is
named in his honour

7. Palaeontology
Abbot Ambrogio Soldani (1736-1808)
Known as the Father of micro-
palaeontology
Soldani was the first person to
publish an extensive research
dedicated to the small fossils
found in the Pliocene and
Pleistocene sediments of
Tuscany
He also taught chemistry and natural
sciences in addition to theology and
philosophy

8. Palaeontology
Pierre-Joseph Van Beneden (1809-1894)
Zoologist & Palaeontologist who
originally studied parisitology
He did extensive research in marine
biology, and in 1843 established an
aquarium and marine laboratory in
Ostend. He studied whales and
fossil whales as well as fossil seals.
He was a devout Catholic and
exhibited "the widest toleration for
the views of others".

9. Palaeontology
Wilhelm Waagen (1841-1900)
Geologist and palaeontologist
Waagen was a professor of
geology, mineralogy and
palaeontology for several
European universities. He wrote
on the German Jura and its fossils,
and conducted pioneering work in
the Salt Range of India on the
Early Triassic ammonoid
succession.

10. Palaeontology
Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
Philosopher and Jesuit priest who
trained as a palaeontologist and
geologist and took part in the
discovery of both Piltdown Man
(fraudulent) and Peking Man.
He became a friend of Henri Breuil
and took part with him, in 1913, in
excavations in the prehistoric
painted caves in the northwest of
Spain, at the Cave of Castillo.

11. Palaeontology
Theodor Verhoeven (1907-1990)
Catholic priest, missionary and
amateur archaeologist who was
responsible for significant
paleontological discoveries in
Indonesia of archaic stone tools in
association with the fossils of
stegodontids (dwarf elephants)
some 800,000 years old, indicating
that islands in Wallacea had been
reached by Homo erectus before
modern humans appeared there