Carl Diener (11 December 1862 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

– 6 January 1928, Vienna) was an Austrian

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

and

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Biography

In 1883 he received his doctorate from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

, where his instructors included

Eduard Suess Eduard Suess (; 20 August 1831 - 26 April 1914) was an Austrian geologist and an expert on the geography of the Alps. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and t ...

and

Melchior Neumayr Melchior Neumayr (24 October 1845 in Munich – 29 January 1890) was an Austrian palaeontologist and the son of Max von Neumayr, a Bavarian Minister of State. He was educated at the University of Munich, and completed his studies at Heidelberg ...

. In 1893 he changed his

venia legendi Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

from geography to geology, a subject that he became an associate professor of in 1897. In 1906 he was named a full professor of paleontology at the University of Vienna.Diener, Carl
Deutsche Biographie He is best remembered for his geological (including

stratigraphic Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrati ...

) and faunistic investigations of the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

. He also conducted important research on his numerous travels worldwide —

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

(1885), the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

(1886), the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

(1892),

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

(1893), the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through European ...

and the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

(1897),

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

(1901), et al. In 1895, with

Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen (23 June 184124 March 1900) was a German geologist and paleontologist. He was born in Munich and died in Vienna. Overview He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Munich, where he studied the rocks and ...

, he proposed the Anisian Stage (a division of the

Middle Triassic In the geologic timescale, the Middle Triassic is the second of three epochs of the Triassic period or the middle of three series in which the Triassic system is divided in chronostratigraphy. The Middle Triassic spans the time between Ma and ...

) as a replacement for the "Alpine Muschelkalk". He was an avid mountaineer, and for a number of years was president of the

Österreichischer Alpenverein The Austrian Alpine Club (german: Österreichischer Alpenverein) has about 573,000 members in 196 sections and is the largest mountaineering organisation in Austria. It is responsible for the upkeep of over 234 alpine huts in Austria and neighbour ...

(Austrian Alpine Club). He was also a member of the

Alpine Club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Published works

With Viktor Uhlig,

Rudolf Hoernes Rudolf Hoernes (7 October 1850 – 20 August 1912) was an Austrian geologist, born in Vienna, son of Moritz Hoernes. He studied under Eduard Suess and became a Professor of geology in Graz. He was known for his earthquake studies in 1878 and ...

and Eduard Suess, he was co-author of the four-part ''Bau und bild Österreichs'' (1903), of which Diener wrote Part 2: ''Bau und bild der Ostalpen und des Karstgebietes'' (Construction and image of the eastern Alps and the

karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...

areas). He also made major contributions to the paleontological

bibliography Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

, ''Fossilium Catalogus'' (1913 –). Diener's other noteworthy written efforts include: * ''Libanon. Grundlinien der physischen geographie und geologie von Mittel-Syrien'', 1886 – Lebanon: Outlines of physical geography and geology of central Syria. * ''Der Gebirgsbau der Westalpen'', 1891 – The mountain structure of the western Alps. * ''Triadische Cephalopodenfaunen der ostsibirischen Küstenprovinz'', 1895 – Triassic

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

ic fauna of the east

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

n coastal region. * ''Mittheilungen über einige Cephalopodensuiten aus der Trias der Südalpen'', 1901 – On some cephalopod groups from the Triassic strata of the southern Alps. * "Triassic faunae of Kashmir", 1913. * ''Paläontologie und Abstammungslehre'', 1920 – Paleontology and

evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

. * ''Ammonoidea permiana'', 1921 –

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

Ammonoidea Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttle ...

. * ''Cnidaria triadica'', 1921 – Triassic

Cnidaria Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that th ...

. * ''Lamellibranchiata triadica'', 1923 – Triassic Lamellibranchiata. * ''Grundzüge der Biostratigraphie'', 1925 – Outline of

biostratigraphy Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy which focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of rock Stratum, strata by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.Hine, Robert. “Biostratigraphy.” ''Oxford Reference: Dictiona ...

.HathiTrust Digital Library
published works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diener, Carl 1862 births 1928 deaths Scientists from Vienna University of Vienna alumni Academics of the University of Vienna 19th-century Austrian geologists Austrian geographers Austrian paleontologists 20th-century Austrian geologists