Friedrich August von Quenstedt

Friedrich August von Quenstedt (1809 to 1889) was a German geologist and palaeontologist, born at Eisleben in Saxony and educated at the Humboldt University of Berlin. After a period as assistant in the mineralogical museum there he was appointed associate professor in 1837 and professor in 1841 of mineralogy and geognosy at the Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen. His earlier work concerned crystallography and mineralogy, on which he published widely used textbooks, including Method der Krystallographie in 1840, but he also became distinguished for his research on palaeontology and especially on the fossils of the Jurassic system. In 1845 he devised a trinomial system of nomenclature for Jurassic ammonites, which has caused some difficulty for later taxonomists, and he wrote several articles on pterosaurs. Five genera, the mineral quenstedtite and the epithet of the fossil turtle Proganochelys quenstedti are named after him, and he supported Maria von Linden, who became the first woman in Germany to be called a professor.