British geologist born in Tarradale, Ross-shire, Scotland, famous for his archaeological research through the study of rock stratification from the first Paleozoic Era (540-408 million). From a wealthy family and initially a military man, he took up the study of geology and conducted field studies in Wales, Germany and Russia. He had, for many years, an open dispute with Adam Sedgwick over the limits biostratigraphic between Cambrian and Silurian, and with who created and named the Devonian system, The Silurian System. He headed the United Kingdom's Geological Survey (1825) and later the Royal Geographical Society.
At the Geological Society he spent five years researching in Scotland, France and the Alps, in collaboration with Adam Sedgwick and other British geologists. In the following decade the brilliant Scottish geologist studied fossiliferous strata in the hills of South Wales and named this geological phase from Silurian System, after Silures, an ancient Celtic tribe that lived along what is now the border of Wales. Very influential politically, he also defined the Devonian and Permian periods and died in London. It is important to inform that theoretically in the first half of the Paleozoic Era the continents were found around the equator.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Gondwana was on the south bank of the equator while Siberia, Laurentia and Baltica were on the north bank. At the end of the Silurian, the three continents collided forming high mountains and creating a new supercontinent, Laurasia. The discovery of the oldest fossil land animals comes from this period, the Silurian of Shropshire, England. Researchers continue to research and describe the oldest land animals, mainly arachnids and myriapods, from Europe and North America.
Figure copied from the page SCIENTIFIC IDENTIFY - S.I.L.:
http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/hst/scientific-identity/
Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
Order R - Biography - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PERCILIA, Eliene. "Roderick Impey Murchison"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/roderick-impey.htm. Accessed on June 29, 2021.