Georges Cuvier
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Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier, known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure i
Portrait by François-André Vincent, 1795
Birthplace of Georges Cuvier in Montbéliard
Cuvier's tomb in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
Cuvier with a fish fossil
Catastrophism
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In geology, catastrophism is the theory that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. This contrasts with uniformitarianism, according to
Georges Cuvier
…that now-extinct species had been wiped out by periodic catastrophic flooding events. In this way, Cuvier became the most influential proponent of catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century. His study of the strata of the Paris basin with Alexandre Brongniart established the basic principles of…
The discoveries of different layers of fossils, such as those containing Palaeotherium and Anoplotherium (pictured), by Georges Cuvier led him to believe that series of catastrophic events wiped out worlds before the modern one.