Charles Darwin, Paleontologist

Along with collecting modern plants and animals during his sojourn on the Beagle, Charles Darwin collected fossils.

He is credited with being the first scientist to examine fossils in the Falkland Islands, where he collected fossil brachiopods, but he is better remembered for the large bones of extinct fossil mammals that he found on his excursions in Patagonia, mastodon, giant ground sloths called Megatheria, and the armadillo-like Glyptodon, and fossil horses, which previously were unknown in the Americas.

Darwin sent his fossils back to England, where the leading British anatomist of the day, Richard Owen, described and published Darwin’s finds. Darwin’s paleontological training continued after he returned from the Beagle voyage, and he became an expert on fossil barnacles.

Image: reconstructions by Richard Owen based on fossils collected by Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin, Marine Geologist

Atolls are circular coral reefs that enclose a lagoon. Many atolls are found in deep ocean waters, far from continental shorelines, and their formation had long been a mystery.

Charles Darwin encountered a number of atolls during the 5-year Beagle voyage, and after observing the variety of coral reef forms, from fringing reefs ringing volcanic islands, to the circular atolls seemingly rising from the sea floor without benefit of a companion island, he puzzled out their formation.

Darwin correctly interpreted these different reef forms as having a common origin, both starting out as a reef in the shallow waters around a newly formed volcanic island. When volcanism ended, the island volcano began to sink. The coral had to grow upward to remain in shallow water for its survival. As the volcano subsided beneath the waves, the ring of coral that once marked its perimeter remained as an atoll.

Photo credit: http://www.coral-reefs.org/Apron-Fringing-Barrier-Patch-reef.html

Darwin & the Beagle

The seminal event in Charles Darwin’s life was his 5-year voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle.

Darwin kept extensive notebooks of his observations on the plants, animals, fossils, and rocks of the areas he visited.. Darwin’s voyage is most widely remembered for the visit to the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, and for the unique animals that inhabited each island, like the marine iguanas, huge tortoises, and birds, but during the voyage Darwin also made the first geological maps of parts of South America, discovered fossils of previously unknown species of extinct South American mammals, and figured out how coral atolls formed.

Darwin returned to England with observations enough to occupy his thoughts for the rest of his long life.

Photo credit: http://theora.com/images/HMS%20Beagle.jpg