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Carl Friedrich Schmidt (geologist)

Baltic German geologist and botanist (1832–1908)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ283881 ↗
Source-derived summary

Carl Friedrich Schmidt (Russian: Фёдор Богданович Шмидт, Fyodor Bogdanovich Schmidt; also known as Friedrich Schmidt; 27 January [O.S. 15 January] 1832 in Kaisma, Livonia – 21 November [O.S. 8 November] 1908 in Saint Petersburg) was a Baltic German geologist and botanist in the Russian Empire. He is acknowledged as the founder of Estonian geology. In the mid-19th century, he researched Estonian oil shale, kukersite, and named it after Kuckers.

Main papers of Friedrich Schmidt research the stratigraphy and fauna of Lower Palaeozoic rocks in Estonia and the neighboring areas. In 1885 he became academician of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He won the Wollaston Medal, awarded by the Geological Society of London, in 1902.

Friedrich Schmidt was the first European to "discover" the Sakhalin Fir on the Russian island of Sakhalin in 1866, but he did not introduce it to Europe. The Schmidt Peninsula (Sakhalin) was named after him.

Notes

Sources

"Шмидт, Федор Богданович" .

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Carl Friedrich Schmidt (geologist)” is baltic German geologist and botanist (1832–1908). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Carl, Friedrich and Schmidt, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1832, 1908, 1885, 1902—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1832-01-15. For this dossier, Carl, Friedrich and Schmidt is the immediate research focus.
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Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q283881. VIAF identifies the subject as 50004659. The Library of Congress control number is no99072762. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1832, 1908, 1885 and 1902.

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This entry incorporates text from “Carl Friedrich Schmidt (geologist)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.