Ferdinand André Fouqué
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
and petrologist
Petrology
Petrology is the branch of geology that studies rocks, and the conditions in which rocks form....
.
He was born at Mortain
Mortain
Mortain is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.-Geography:Mortain is situated on a rocky hill rising above the gorge of the Cance, a tributary of the Sélune.-Administration:Mortain is the seat of a canton...
, in the Manche
Manche
Manche is a French department in Normandy named after La Manche , which is the French name for the English Channel.- History :Manche is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
département.
At the age of twenty-one he entered the École Normale in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and from 1853 to 1858 he held the appointment of keeper of the scientific collections. In 1877 he became professor of natural history at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, in Paris, and in 1881 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences.
As a stratigraphical geologist he rendered much assistance on the Geological Survey of France, but in the course of time he gave his special attention to the study of volcanic phenomena and earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s, to minerals and rocks; and he was the first to introduce modern petrographical methods into France. He also worked on volcanic gas
Volcanic gas
|250px|thumb|right|Image of the [[rhyolitic]] [[lava dome]] of [[Chaitén Volcano]] during its 2008-2010 eruption.Volcanic gases include a variety of substances given off by active volcanoes...
analyses, using the methods of Robert Bunsen
Robert Bunsen
Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium and rubidium with Gustav Kirchhoff. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic...
, mainly with his student Henri Gorceix
Claude-Henri Gorceix
Claude-Henri Gorceix was a French mineralogist born in Saint-Denis-des-Murs, Haute-Vienne.From 1863 to 1866 he studied at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris, earning a bachelor's degree in physical sciences and mathematics...
on Santorini
Santorini
Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...
(Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
). One prominent student of his was Alfred Lacroix, to whom Fouqué's daughter was married.
His studies of the eruptive rocks of Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, Santorini
Santorini
Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...
and elsewhere; his researches on the artificial reproduction of eruptive rocks, and his treatise on the optical characters of feldspar
Feldspar
Feldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals which make up as much as 60% of the Earth's crust....
s deserve special mention; but he was perhaps best known for the joint work which he carried on with his friend Auguste Michel-Lévy
Auguste Michel-Lévy
Auguste Michel-Lévy was a French geologist. He was born in Paris.He became inspector-general of mines, and director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for his researches on extrusive rocks, their microscopic structure and origin; and he employed the polarizing microscope...
.
His chief publications were: Santorin et ses eruptions, 1879; (with Michel-Lévy) Minéralogie micrographique, Roches éruptives françaises (2 vols., 1879); and Synthèse des minéraux et des roches (1885).