Searles Valentine Wood
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Searles Valentine Wood (February 14, 1798 – October 26, 1880) was an English palaeontologist.
Life
Wood went to sea in 1811 as a midshipman in the British East India Company's service, which he left in 1826. He then settled at Hasketon near Woodbridge, Suffolk.<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |
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Wood devoted himself to a study of the mollusca of the Newer or Upper Tertiary (now Neogene) of Suffolk and Norfolk, and the Older Tertiary (Eocene) of the Hampshire Basin.<ref name="EB1911" /> His work in East Anglia focussed on the Crag deposits, "crag" being a local term for shelly sand that has been adopted by geologists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Opportunities for fossil-gathering were then plentiful, as these deposits were quarried to be used for fertiliser.<ref name="NatureObituary">Template:Cite journal</ref> These studies led to his chief work, A Monograph of the Crag Mollusca (1848–1856), published by the Palaeontographical Society. He was awarded the Wollaston medal for this work in 1860 by the Geological Society of London. A supplement was issued by him in 1872–1874, a second in 1879, and a third (edited by his son) in 1882.<ref name="EB1911" />
He worked on the older deposits with his friend Frederick Edwards, Edwards describing the univalves and Wood the bivalves.<ref name="NatureObituary"/> This resulted in the publication of A Monograph of the Eocene Bivalves of England (1861–1871), also issued by the Palaeontographical Society.<ref name="EB1911" />
He died at Martlesham, near Woodbridge.<ref name="EB1911" />
His son, Searles Valentine Wood (1830-1884), was for some years a solicitor at Woodbridge, but gave up the profession and devoted his energies to geology, studying especially the structure of the deposits of the crag and glacial drifts.<ref name="EB1911" />
References
External links
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