Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen

Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen (23 June 184124 March 1900) was a German geologist and paleontologist. He was born in Munich and died in Vienna. He worked from 1870 to 1875 in the Geological Survey of India. He was a professor of paleontology at the University of Vienna from 1890.

Life and work Geological Survey of India in 1870; Waagen is the second standing figure from the right. Waagen was born in Munich, the son of a Prussian councillor and his wife, Nanette (née Schechner), who had been a singer. He studied locally and attended the lectures of Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold and Albert Oppel at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München before going to the University of Zurich where he studied natural sciences. His first work was on the Jurassic of France, Swabia and Switzerland published in 1864.

He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München under Albert Oppel where he studied the rocks and fossils of the Jurassic system, and published an elaborate work on geology (Versuch einer Allgemeinen Classification der Schichten des oberen Jura) that was crowned by the university. In 1866, he became an instructor in paleontology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and at the same time taught Princess Theresa and Prince Arnulf of Bavaria. In 1886, he declined a position at the school of mines at Berlin. In 1870, he joined the Geological Survey of India and was appointed as a paleontologist in 1874, but the weather forced him to retire in 1875.

Waagen was named councillor of the board of mines (Oberbergart), and in 1893 was made a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1898, the Geological Society of London awarded him the Lyell medal.

In 1869, after an exhaustive study of ammonites, Waagen advocated the theory of orthogenetic evolution or mutation for certain series of fossils. As a young man he had taken an active part in the Catholic life of Munich, and two years before his death he wrote a treatise on the first chapter of Genesis that showed both the geologist and the Christian. His son, Lukas Waagen, was also a geologist.

Legacy The fossil conodont Neospathodus waageni was named after him, but it is now placed under the genus Novispathodus. The fish Puntius waageni is named for Waagen, as it was described on the basis of a specimen that he collected.

Editorial works Waagen was one of the editors of the periodical "Geognostische-paläontologische Beiträge" (Munich), and during the years 1894-1900 editor of the "Beiträge zur Paläontologie Oesterreich-Ungarns und des Orients" (Vienna); after the death of Joachim Barrande (1883) he edited several volumes of Barrande's work "Système silurien". Waagen's most important works were: "Der Jura in Franken, Schwaben und der Schweiz" (Munich, 1864). "Klassification der Schichten des obern Jura" (Munich, 1865). "Über die Zone des Ammonites Sowerbyi" (Munich, 1867) "Die Formenreihe des Ammonites subradiatus" (Munich, 1869). "Ueber die geologische Verteilung der Organismen in Indien" (Vienna, 1878). "Das Schopfungsproblem" in "Natur und Offenbarung" (Munster, 1898; as a separate publication, 1899). "Gliederun der pelagischen Sedimente des Triassystems" (Vienna, 1895). He wrote in English: "Jurassic Fauna of Kutch" (1873-6); "Productus Limestone" (1879–91); "Fossils from the Ceratite Formation" (1892).