Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen

Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen (1800 to 1889) was a German geologist, born in Berlin and educated at the University of Berlin. He studied mining in Bochum and Essen, was placed in the mining department of the Prussian state in 1820 and served on its staff until 1864. He was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1834 to 1841, after which he became director of the Prussian mining department while stationed at Bonn. In his early years he made journeys to study the mining systems of other countries, visiting England and Scotland with Karl von Oeynhausen, paid special attention to the coal formation of Westphalia and northern Europe, and greatly furthered mining and metallurgical works in Rhenish Prussia. The work that gave him the most renown was a geological map of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia in 35 sheets at a scale of 1 to 80,000, issued with two volumes of text between 1855 and 1882, and he also published a small geological map of Germany in 1869. He died in Bonn in 1889, and the minerals dechenite and vondechenite are named after him.