ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Making of the Silurian: How Central-Bohemian Silurian Went from Being British to Being Local and then Global

• In Event: Stratigraphy, Deep Time, and the Making of Geological Knowledge 1

English Abstract

Within the context of the cultural history of geology and the history of time, this paper explores the 'politics of time' in stratigraphy. It uses the 'discovery' of the Silurian system in the Central Bohemian Massif as a case study.
The region had attracted the attention of early geologists since the late 18th century, primarily due to its mineral composition. However, the arrival of the French refugee Joachim Barrande in Bohemia in the mid-19th century brought a change of perspective. This now largely forgotten scholar was the first to interpret the region through the lens of biostratigraphy, greatly enriching knowledge of trilobites in the process. Heavily influenced by his friend Roderick Murchison, Barrande correlated the region with the Silurian period in Wales. Throughout his long life, he fought for the Murchisonian interpretation of the region, even after it was significantly contested by local scholars with new discoveries. Barrande’s Silurian eventually broke into pieces and now spans from the Ordovician to the Devonian periods. Nevertheless, his work laid the foundation for the first ever global stratotype to be set in the very same region: the Silurian–Devonian boundary.
This paper aims to show how stratigraphy meanders through various conceptions of the history of Earth, from mineral-focused geognosy to biostratigraphy and the idea of globally defined periods, but that it was also shaped by personal predilections and nationalistic tendencies. The intellectual archaeology of stratigraphy can shed light on how our current understanding of the Earth’s past came about.

Author

• Josef Řídký, Czech Academy of Sciences, Masaryk Institute and Archive