Murchison in Sweden: consolidating Lower Silurian stratigraphy in the summer of 1844

Abstract

AbstractRoderick Murchison traversed southern Sweden from Göteborg to Stockholm from 28 July to 8 August 1844. He was accompanied by Sven Lovén and they made extensive use of the geognostic map of Sweden published in 1834 by Wilhelm Hisinger. During that campaign, they visited numerous outcrops of Hisinger's ‘Transition’ rocks and Murchison recognized them as belonging to the Lower Silurian, which he had described previously in Britain, Norway and Russia. In addition, he inspected fossil collections at the natural history museum in Stockholm and recognized that Gotland was composed of Upper Silurian rocks. Thus the 1844 campaign established for the first time the occurrence of Silurian rocks in Sweden and it consolidated the usefulness of Palaeozoic system terminology in this part of Scandinavia. Murchison's efficient research methodology ensured his rapid progress in the field and the widespread dissemination of his findings.