Thomas Oldham
May 04, 1816 – July 17, 1878
Countries:
Ireland, United Kingdom
Place of Birth:
Dublin, Ireland
Place of Death:
Rugby, England
Categories:
Poetry
Thomas Oldham was an Anglo-Irish geologist.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and studied civil engineering at the University of Edinburgh as well as geology under Robert Jameson.
In 1838 he joined the ordnance survey in Ireland as a chief assistant under Joseph Ellison Portlock who was studying the geology of Londonderry and neighbourhood. Portlock wrote of him "whenever I have required his aid... I have found him possessed of the highest intelligence and the most unbounded zeal"
He discovered radiating fans shaped impressions in the town of Bray in 1840. He showed this to the English palaeontologist Edward Forbes, who named it Oldhamia after him. Forbes declared them to be bryozoans, however, later workers ascribed it to other plants and animals. For a while, these were considered the oldest fossils in the world.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and studied civil engineering at the University of Edinburgh as well as geology under Robert Jameson.
In 1838 he joined the ordnance survey in Ireland as a chief assistant under Joseph Ellison Portlock who was studying the geology of Londonderry and neighbourhood. Portlock wrote of him "whenever I have required his aid... I have found him possessed of the highest intelligence and the most unbounded zeal"
He discovered radiating fans shaped impressions in the town of Bray in 1840. He showed this to the English palaeontologist Edward Forbes, who named it Oldhamia after him. Forbes declared them to be bryozoans, however, later workers ascribed it to other plants and animals. For a while, these were considered the oldest fossils in the world.