Thomas Oldham was a Anglo-Irish geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

.

He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

 and studied civil engineering at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

 as well as geology under Robert Jameson

Robert Jameson

thumb|Robert JamesonProfessor Robert Jameson, FRS FRSE was a Scottish naturalist and mineralogist.As Regius Professor at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, Jameson is notable for his advanced scholarship in natural history, his superb museum collection, and for his tuition of Charles...

.

In 1838 he joined the ordnance survey in Ireland as a chief assistant under Joseph Ellison Portlock who was studying the geology of Londonderry and neighbourhood

Neighbourhood

A neighbourhood or neighborhood is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town or suburb. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. "Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition...

. Portlock wrote of him
He discovered radiating fans shaped impressions in the town of Bray in 1840. He showed this to the English palaeontologist Edward Forbes

Edward Forbes

Professor Edward Forbes FRS, FGS was a Manx naturalist.-Early years:Forbes was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals,...

, who named it Oldhamia after him. Forbes declared them to be bryozoa

Bryozoa

The Bryozoa, also known as Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals, are a phylum of aquatic invertebrate animals. Typically about long, they are filter feeders that sieve food particles out of the water using a retractable lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles lined with cilia...

ns, however later workers ascribed it to other plants and animals. For a while these were considered the oldest fossils in the world.

He became Curator to the Geological Society of Dublin, and in 1845 succeeded John Phillips

John Phillips (geologist)

John Phillips FRS was an English geologist.- Life and work :Philips was born at Marden in Wiltshire...

, nephew of William Smith

William Smith (geologist)

William 'Strata' Smith was an English geologist, credited with creating the first nationwide geological map. He is known as the "Father of English Geology" for collating the geological history of England and Wales into a single record, although recognition was very slow in coming...

, in the Chair of Geology at Trinity College, Dublin. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1848.

He married Louisa Matilda Dixon of Liverpool in 1850. He resigned in November that year and took a position as the first Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India

Geological Survey of India

Geological Survey of India , established in 1851 is a government organization in India which is an attached office to the Ministry of Mines of Union Government of India for conducting geological surveys and studies. It is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world and the second oldest...

. He was to be the first of the Irish geologists to migrate to the Subcontinent. He was followed by his brother Charles, William King, son of the Professor of Geology at Queen's College, Galway; Valentine Ball

Valentine Ball

Valentine Ball was an Irish geologist, and a brother of Sir Robert Ball.Ball joined the Geological Survey of India, becoming an authority not only on geology but also on ornithology and anthropology. His best known work is Jungle-Life in India...

 and more than 12 other Irish geologists.

In India he oversaw a mapping program that focussed on coal bearing strata. The team of geologists made major discoveries. Henry Benedict Medlicott

Henry Benedict Medlicott

Henry Benedict Medlicott was an Irish geologist who worked in India.-Early life:He was born in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland, the son of the Church of Ireland Rector of Loughrea, Samuel Medlicott and his wife Charlotte , daughter of Henry Benedict Dolphin, C. B...

 coined the term "Gondwana Series" in 1872. Oldham's elder son Richard Dixon Oldham distinguished three types of pressure

Seismic wave

Seismic waves are waves of energy that travel through the earth, and are a result of an earthquake, explosion, or a volcano that imparts low-frequency acoustic energy. Many other natural and anthropogenic sources create low amplitude waves commonly referred to as ambient vibrations. Seismic waves...

 produced by earthquakes: now known as P (compressional), S (shear), and L (Love)-waves, based on his observations made after the Great Assam Earthquake of 1897. Richard showed in 1906 the arrival patterns of waves and suggested that the core of the earth was liquid. His younger son Henry

Henry Yule Oldham

Henry Yule Oldham, was a teacher and geographer who, in 1901, conducted the definitive version of the Bedford Level experiment, a proof that the Earth is a sphere.-Early life:...

 became a reader

Reader (academic rank)

The title of Reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship...

 in geography at Kings College, Cambridge.

He also started the Paleontologia Indica, a series of memoirs on the fossils of India. For this work he recruited Ferdinand Stoliczka

Ferdinand Stoliczka

Ferdinand Stoliczka was a Moravian palaeontologist who worked in India on paleontology, geology and various aspects of zoology. He died of high altitude sickness during an expedition across the Himalayas.-Early life:Stoliczka was born at the lodge Zámeček near Kroměříž in Moravia...

 from Europe.

Oldham resigned from his position in India in 1876 on the grounds of poor health and retired to Rugby in England. In recognition of his lifetime's "long & important services in the science of geology", including Palaeontographica Indica, he was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal

Royal Medal

The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences" made within the Commonwealth of...

. He died on 17 July 1878.