Print this pageSir Roderick I Murchison, aka “King of Siluria,”
and his Geological Trip to 
Poland
in 1843
Krzywiec, Piotr *1; Narkiewicz, Marek 1;
Slaczka, Andrzej 2; Diemer, John 3
(1) Polish Geological
Institute NRI, Warsaw, Poland.
(2) Institute of Geological Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
(3) Department of Geography and Earth
Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.
Recent boom in shale gas exploration in Poland is connected
primarily to the the Lower Silurian shales of the East European Craton in
central and Easter Poland and, secondly, to the Lower Carboniferous shales of
the Variscan foreland from Western Poland. Taking this into account, it is
interesting to note that one of the most famous geologists of the XIXth
century, sir. Roderick I. Murchison (1792 - 1871), very well known for his work
on the Paleozoic rocks, spent one field season in Poland studying Paleozoic but
also Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks in different parts of this country. Main
scientific achievements of R. Murchison include identifying the Silurian,
Devonian (together with Adam Sedgwick) and Permian Systems, compilation of
geologic maps of Wales, Scotland, Russia and Europe, publication of more than
180 scientific papers and three major books. His important book on the Silurian
system went through 5 editions, and his work on rocks of that age earned him a
nick-name “King of Siluria”. In 1840 - 1841 Murchison was invited
by the Russian tsar Nikolay I to organize two scientific expeditions to Russia.
After these two geological expeditions to Russia, Murchison, aware that
geological boundaries are not in line with state borders, decided to continue
his investigations in Poland
. In June 1843 Murchison arrived to Warsaw, where
he was met by Ludwik Zejszner (1805-1871), an outstanding Polish geologist,
paleontologist and geological cartographer. They both travelled to the Holy
Cross Mts. where they studied Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks. Then,
they moved to Krakow and further to the South, to reach the highest peaks of
the Carpathians, the Tatra Mts. They also visited world-famous Wieliczka salt
mine located near Krakow. Part of Murchison’s Polish work was published
in “The Geology of Russia”, in “Siluria” and in the
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. Details of this prolific
geological field trip are known from Murchison’s field notebook (kept in
the archives of the Geological Society of London), letters sent to his wife
Charlotte, and from Zejszner’s field notebooks.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90142 © 2012 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, April 22-25, 2012, Long Beach, California