Editing Jurassic (section)

==Etymology and history==
[[File:Alexandre Brongniart.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of [[Alexandre Brongniart]], who coined the term "Jurassic"|alt=alt=A realistic black-and-white portrait of Brongniart, who is clean shaven with a full head of hair. He is dressed in a formal jacket]]
The [[chronostratigraphy|chronostratigraphic]] term "Jurassic" is linked to the [[Jura Mountains]], a forested [[mountain range]] that mainly follows the [[France–Switzerland border]]. The name "Jura" is derived from the [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] root {{lang|cel|*jor}} via [[Gaulish]] ''*iuris'' "wooded mountain", which was borrowed into [[Latin]] as a name of a place and evolved into ''Juria'' and finally ''Jura''.

During a tour of the region in 1795, German [[naturalist]] [[Alexander von Humboldt]] recognized [[Carbonate rock|carbonate]] deposits within the Jura Mountains as [[Geology of the Jura Massif|geologically]] distinct from the [[Triassic]] aged [[Muschelkalk]] of southern [[Germany]], but he erroneously concluded that they were older. He then named them {{lang|de|Jura-Kalkstein}} ('Jura limestone') in 1799.<ref name="Ogg-2012" />

In 1829, the French naturalist [[Alexandre Brongniart]] published a book entitled ''Description of the Terrains that Constitute the Crust of the Earth or Essay on the Structure of the Known Lands of the Earth.'' In this book, Brongniart used the phrase ''terrains jurassiques'' when correlating the "Jura-Kalkstein" of Humboldt with similarly aged [[Oolite|oolitic limestones]] in Britain, thus coining and publishing the term "Jurassic".<ref>{{cite book |last=Brongniart |first=Alexandre |author-link=Alexandre Brongniart |title=Tableau des terrains qui composent l'écorce du globe ou essai sur la structure de la partie connue de la terre |publisher=F.G. Levrault |location=Strasbourg, France |year=1829 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k255061/f1.image |language=fr |via=Gallica|trans-title=Description of the Terrains that Constitute the Crust of the Earth or Essay on the Structure of the Known Lands of the Earth}}  From p. 221, footnote 2:  ''"Souvent aussi calcaire oolithique moyen ou principal (great oolithe ) ; mais le nom de terrains jurassiques nous paroît préférable […] analogue à celle de la chaîne du Jura."'' (Often also middle or principal oolitic limestone (great oolithe); but the name of "Jurassic terrains" seems to us preferable, because it is more general, because it indicates a terrain composed of different rocks, being in a geognostic position analogous to that of the Jura chain.)</ref><ref name="Ogg-2012" />

The German geologist [[Christian Leopold von Buch|Leopold von Buch]] in 1839 established the three-fold division of the Jurassic, originally named from oldest to the youngest: the [[Black Jurassic]], [[Brown Jurassic]], and [[White Jurassic]].<ref>von Buch, L., 1839. Über den Jura in Deutschland. Der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, p. 87.</ref> The term "[[Lias Group|Lias]]" had previously been used for strata of equivalent age to the Black Jurassic in England by [[William Conybeare (geologist)|William Conybeare]] and [[William Phillips (geologist)|William Phillips]] in 1822. William Phillips, the geologist, worked with William Conybeare to find out more about the Black Jurassic in England.

The French [[palaeontologist]] [[Alcide d'Orbigny]] in papers between 1842 and 1852 divided the Jurassic into ten stages based on [[ammonite]] and other fossil assemblages in England and France, of which seven are still used, but none has retained its original definition. The German geologist and palaeontologist [[Friedrich August von Quenstedt]] in 1858 divided the three series of von Buch in the [[Swabian Jura]] into six subdivisions defined by ammonites and other fossils.

The German palaeontologist [[Albert Oppel]] in his studies between 1856 and 1858 altered d'Orbigny's original scheme and further subdivided the stages into [[Biostratigraphy|biostratigraphic]] zones, based primarily on ammonites. Most of the modern stages of the Jurassic were formalized at the Colloque du Jurassique à Luxembourg in 1962.<ref name="Ogg-2012" />