Karl Alfred von Zittel

Karl Alfred von Zittel was born in Bahlingen in the Grand Duchy of Baden. His father, Karl was a leading liberal cleric in Baden.{{Cite journal|last=Osborn|first=Henry Fairfield |author-link= Henry Fairfield Osborn |date=1904|title=Karl Alfred Von Zittel|journal=Science|volume=19|issue=474|pages=186–188|doi=10.1126/science.19.474.186|jstor=1630122|pmid=17770741|bibcode=1904Sci....19..186F|issn=0036-8075|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1984824 }} He was educated at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Paris and the University of Vienna. For a short period he served on the Geological Survey of Austria, and as assistant in the mineralogical museum at Vienna. In 1863, he became teacher of geology and mineralogy in the polytechnic at Karlsruhe, and three years later he succeeded Albert Oppel as professor of palaeontology in the University of Munich, with the charge of the state collection of fossils.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

File:Zittel, Karl Alfred von (young).jpgIn 1873–1874, he accompanied the Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs's expedition to the Libyan Desert, the primary results of which were published in Über den geologischen Bau der libyschen Wuste (1880), and further details in the Palaeontographica (1883). Zittel was distinguished for his palaeontological researches. From 1869 until the close of his life he was chief editor of the Palaeontographica.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

In 1876, he commenced the publication of his great work, Handbuch der Palaeontologie, which was completed in 1893 in five volumes, the fifth volume on palaeobotany being prepared by W. P. Schimper and A. Schenk. To make his work as trustworthy as possible Zittel made special studies of each great group, commencing with the fossil sponges, on which he published a monograph (1877–1879). In 1895, he issued a summary of his larger work entitled Grundzuge der Palaeontologie.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

In 1880, Zittel was appointed to the geological professorship, and eventually to the directorship of the natural history museum of Munich. His earlier work comprised a monograph on the Cretaceous bivalve mollusca of Gosau (1863–1866); and an essay on the Tithonian stage (1870), regarded as equivalent to the Purbeck Group and Wealden formations.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Zittel published Aus der Urzeit and Die Sahara (1883). In 1899, he published Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie bis Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts,{{cite book|last = Von Zittel|first = K. A.|date = 1899|title = Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie bis Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts|url = http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11169770-4|language = de|location = Munich|publisher = Oldenbour|access-date = 20 July 2017}} a monumental history of the progress of geological science.{{cite book|last = Von Zittel |first = K. A.|date = 1901|title = History of Geology and Palaeontology to the End of the Nineteenth Century |translator= Maria M. Ogilvie-Gordon |translator-link = Maria Gordon |url =https://archive.org/details/historygeologypa00azit/mode/2up?view=theater |location = London |publisher = Walter Scott and Charles Scribner's Sons |access-date= 1 August 2023}} Zittel was president of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences from 1899, and in 1894 he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} He was elected an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1903.{{cite web |title=Member Directory |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/karl-alfred-ritter-von-zittel |website=American Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=October 3, 2022}}

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• {{EB1911|wstitle= Zittel, Karl Alfred von |volume= 28 | page= 991 }}

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• {{cite journal |author=A. S. W. |title=Prof. Karl Alfred Von Zittel |journal= Nature |pages= 253–255 |date= 1904 |volume = 69 |issue=1785 |doi = 10.1038/069253b0 |doi-access= free }}
• {{cite book |author = Hölder, Helmut |chapter = ZITTEL, KARL ALFRED VON |title= Dictionary of Scientific Biography |editor = Gillispie, Charles Coulston |editor-link = Charles Coulston Gillispie|volume= XIV (ADDISON EMERY VERRILL - JOHANN ZWELFER) |year= 1976 |place= New York |publisher= Charles Scribner's Sons |url = https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofscie14gill/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |url-access= registration |pages= [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofscie14gill/page/626/mode/2up?view=theater 626 - 627] |via = Internet Archive}}
• {{cite book |chapter= MÜNCHEN: The Fossil Collections of the Bavarian State Collections at Munich |author=Reich, Mike |author2=Gert Wörheide |title=Paleontological Collections of Germany, Austria and Switzerland: The History of Life of Fossils Organisms at Museums and Universities |editor1= Beck, Lothar A. |editor2= Urlich Joger |pages= 431–436 |publisher= Springer International Publishing AG |place= |year= 2018 |doi = 10.1007/978-3-319-77401-5 |isbn= 978-3-319-77400-8|s2cid=53947731 }}

• {{cite web |url =https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118808508.html |author= |author-link=|title= Zittel, Karl von |publisher= Deutsche Biographie

|doi= |language = German |accessdate= 22 December 2023}}

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Category:19th-century German zoologists

Category:20th-century German zoologists

Category:1839 births

Category:1904 deaths

Category:Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences

Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences

Category:19th-century German geologists

Category:German paleontologists

Category:German taxonomists

Category:Paleozoologists

Category:People from Emmendingen (district)

Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Baden

Category:Wollaston Medal winners