Charles Lapworth

Geologist, born in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, SC England, UK. In 1864 he became a teacher in Galashiels, where he did important work on the geology of S Scotland and the NW Highlands. He was professor of geology at Birmingham (1881–1913), and wrote especially on graptolites. The term Ordovician was introduced by him.

Charles Lapworth (September 20, 1842 – March 13, 1920) was an English geologist.

Born at Faringdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), and trained as a teacher, Lapworth settled in the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area. Eventually, through patient mapping and innovative use of index fossil analysis, Lapworth showed that what was thought to be a thick sequence of Silurian rocks was in fact a much thinner series of rocks repeated by faulting and folding. He is best known for pioneering faunal analysis of Silurian beds by means of index fossils, especially graptolites, and his proposal (eventually adopted) that the beds between the Cambrian beds of north Wales and the Silurian beds of South Wales should be assigned to a new geological period: the Ordovician.