Abraham Gottlob Werner (September 25, 1749 – June 30, 1817), was a German geologist who set out a now obsolete theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the now obsolete word Neptunism.
Werner was born in Wehrau (now Osiecznica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship), a village in Prussian Silesia. His family had been involved in the mining industry for many years. His father, Abraham David Werner, was a foreman at a foundry in Wehrau....
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Abraham Gottlob Werner (September 25, 1749 – June 30, 1817), was a German geologist who set out a now obsolete theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the now obsolete word Neptunism.
Werner was born in Wehrau (now Osiecznica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship), a village in Prussian Silesia. His family had been involved in the mining industry for many years. His father, Abraham David Werner, was a foreman at a foundry in Wehrau.
Werner was educated at Freiberg and Leipzig, where he studied law and mining, and was then appointed as Inspector and Teacher of Mining and Mineralogy at the small, but influential, Freiberg Mining Academy in 1775.
While in Leipzig, Werner became interested in the systematic identification and classification of minerals. Within a year he published the first modern textbook on descriptive mineralogy, Vonden äusserlichen Kennzeichen der Fossilien (On the External Characters of Fossils, or of Minerals) (1774).
During his career, Werner published...
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