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Othniel Charles Marsh

 
Othniel Charles Marsh

 
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Othniel Charles Marsh
 
 
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Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s found in the American West.

h was born in Lockport
Lockport (city), New York

Lockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, New York, United States. The population was 22,279 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal Canal lock within the city....
, New York
New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
, in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. He graduated Yale College
Yale College

Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges....
 in 1860, and studied geology
Geology

Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structural geology, physical properties, dynamics, and History of the Earth of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed....
 and mineralogy
Mineralogy

Mineralogy is an Earth Science focused around the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization....
 in the Sheffield Scientific School
Sheffield Scientific School

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut for instruction in science and engineering....
, New Haven, and afterwards paleontology and anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
, Heidelberg
Heidelberg

Heidelberg is a city in Baden-W?rttemberg, Germany. As of 2006, over 140,000 people live within the city's area. The town of Heidelberg is an administrative district of its own....
 and Breslau.






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Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s found in the American West.

Biography


Early life

Marsh was born in Lockport
Lockport (city), New York

Lockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, New York, United States. The population was 22,279 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal Canal lock within the city....
, New York
New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
, in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. He graduated Yale College
Yale College

Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges....
 in 1860, and studied geology
Geology

Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structural geology, physical properties, dynamics, and History of the Earth of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed....
 and mineralogy
Mineralogy

Mineralogy is an Earth Science focused around the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization....
 in the Sheffield Scientific School
Sheffield Scientific School

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut for instruction in science and engineering....
, New Haven, and afterwards paleontology and anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
, Heidelberg
Heidelberg

Heidelberg is a city in Baden-W?rttemberg, Germany. As of 2006, over 140,000 people live within the city's area. The town of Heidelberg is an administrative district of its own....
 and Breslau. He returned to the United States in 1866 and was appointed professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
. He persuaded his uncle, George Peabody
George Peabody

George Peabody was an entrepreneur and philanthropy who founded the Peabody Institute. He was born in what was then South Danvers, Massachusetts , to a family with Puritan antecedents in the state, but that was solidly middle class....
, to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale.

Career

In May 1871 Marsh uncovered the first pterosaur
Pterosaur

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or Order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight....
 fossils found in America. He also found early horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
s, flying reptiles, the Cretaceous and Jurassic
Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to  Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
 dinosaurs; Apatosaurus
Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus , also formerly known as Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived about 150 Annum, during the Jurassic Period ....
 and Allosaurus
Allosaurus

Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago, in the late Jurassic Period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard" and is derived from the Ancient Greek a????/allos and sa????/sauros ....
, and described the toothed birds of the Cretaceous
Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
; Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis

Ichthyornis is a genus of seabird from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Its fossil remains are known from the chalks of Alberta, Alabama, Kansas, New Mexico, Saskatchewan, and Texas, in strata that were laid down in the Western Interior Seaway; some fossils from other locations like Argentina and Central Asia are sometimes referred...
 and Hesperornis
Hesperornis

Hesperornis is an extinct genus of flightless aquatic birds that lived during the Santonian to Campanian sub-epochs of the Late Cretaceous ....
. Marsh is also known for the so-called Bone Wars
Bone Wars

The Bone Wars, also known as the "Great Dinosaur Rush", refers to a period of intense fossil speculation and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh ....
 waged against Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope was an United States paleontology and comparative anatomy, as well as a noted herpetology and ichthyology.Born to a wealthy Society of Friends family, Cope quickly distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper in 1859....
. The two men were fiercely competitive, discovering and documenting more than 120 new species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 of dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
 between them.

Marsh died in 1899 and was interred at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is the third largest municipality in Connecticut, after Bridgeport, Connecticut and Hartford, with a core population of about 124,000 people....
.

External links