William Buckland, English Paleontologist

William Buckland (March 12, 1784 - August, 14 1856) the English geologist and paleontologist who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he called megalosaurus, or great lizard. He was a pioneer in the use of fossilized feces, for which he coined the term coprolites, to reconstruct ancient ecosystems. Buckland was a proponent of the Gap Theory that interpreted the biblical account of Genesis as referring to two separate episodes of creation separated by a lengthy period, Early in his career he believed that he had found geologic evidence of the biblical flood, but later became convinced that the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz provided a better explanation.Around the end of 1849, he contracted a disease which increasingly disabled him until his death in 1856 at the age of 72. Post-mortem examination identified a tubercular infection of the upper cervical vertebrae which had spread to the brain

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Buckland Geologist Paleontologist

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