Paul Choffat
Swiss-Portuguese geologist and paleontologist (1849–1919)
Léon Paul Choffat (14 May 1849 – 6 June 1919) was a Swiss-born geologist, noted as a stratigrapher and paleontologist, who distinguished himself as a study of the pioneer of paleontology of the Jurassic and physical geography of Portugal. Having started his career as an associate professor of animal paleontology at the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich, (Now ETH Zurich) From 1878 he settled in Portugal, where he spent most of his scientific career and where he died. He is considered a key figure in the history of Portuguese Geology, whose studies are still relevant to the knowledge of the geology of Portugal.
Biography
Born in Porrentruy, canton of Jura in French-speaking Switzerland, from a Soubey (Jura) family, he completed his primary and secondary studies in his homeland. After the high school, left for Besançon, France, where he was employed in a bank house.
During his stay in Besançon he integrated with the local intelligentsia, establishing friendship with various naturalists and developing a great interest in geology. He was a member of the prestigious Société d'Emulation du Doubs. In 1871 he returned to Switzerland and the following year enrolled in the Chemistry and Natural Sciences course at the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich and the University of Zurich. During his studies he became particularly interested in Paleontology, being a student, among others, of professors Arnold Escher von der Linth and Albert Heim.
Having completed the course in 1876, the distinctive and brilliant manner in which the course was attended, as evidenced by the high standards of consideration it received from its teachers, led to that honorable appointment that same year as an aggregate professor of Animal Paleontology at the Federal Polytechnic School.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paul Choffat” 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.