Marcel Alexandre Bertrand (2 July 1847 – 13 February 1907) was a French

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, alt ...

born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. He was the son of

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

Joseph Louis François Bertrand (1822–1900), and son-in-law to

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

Éleuthère Mascart Éleuthère Élie Nicolas Mascart (20 February 1837 – 24 August 1908) was a noted French physicist, a researcher in optics, electricity, magnetism, and meteorology. Life Mascart was born in Quarouble, Nord. Starting in 1858, he attende ...

(1837-1908). He studied at the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern Franc ...

, and beginning in 1869 he attended the Ecole des Mines de Paris. From 1877 he carried out geological mapping studies of

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border ...

, the

Jura Mountains The Jura Mountains ( , , , ; french: Massif du Jura; german: Juragebirge; it, Massiccio del Giura, rm, Montagnas da Jura) are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the Fre ...

and the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, ...

. In 1886, he became an instructor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines, and in 1896 became a member of the

Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...

. Bertrand, a founder of modern

tectonics Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents ...

, originated an orogenic "wave theory" of mountain-building and introduced the

nappe In geology, a nappe or thrust sheet is a large sheetlike body of rock that has been moved more than or above a thrust fault from its original position. Nappes form in compressional tectonic settings like continental collision zones or on the ...

hypothesis (). His wave theory described a build-up of massive folds of earth taking place over successive geological eras, called the Caledonian, Hercynian and Alpine periods of orogeny. Bertrand later added a fourth event called the Huronian orogeny, which took place 2400 to 2100 million years ago, in

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...

time. In 1890 he was named president of the

Société géologique de France Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

.Marcel-Alexandre BERTRAND
Société géologique de France The ''Concours de Géologie'' twice awarded him the ''Prix Vaillant'' (1886 and 1890); he also won the ''Prix Fontannes'' (of the Société géologique de France) in 1888 and the ''Prix Petit d'Ormoy'' in 1893.

Personal life

He was married to Mathilde Mascart and their daughter, Thérèse Bertrand-Fontaine (1895 – 1987), became a physician and researcher. She was only the third woman to be named a full member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Selected works

* ''Études dans les Alpes françaises. structure en éventail, massifs amygdaloïdes et métamorphisme'' 1894 – Studies of the

French Alps The French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. While some of the ranges of the French Alps are entirely in France, others, such a ...

. * ''Sur la structure du mont Joly près de Saint-Gervais (Haute-Savoie)'', 1896 – On the Mount Joly structure near Saint-Gervais (Haute-Savoie). * ''Les chaînes septentrionales des Alpes bernoises'', 1899 – The northern chain of the

Bernese Alps , topo_map= Swiss Federal Office of Topography swisstopo , photo=BerneseAlps.jpg , photo_caption=The Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau , country= Switzerland , subdivision1_type= Cantons , subdivision1= , parent= Western Alps , borders_on= , ...

. * ''La grande nappe de recouvrement de la Basse-Provence'', 1899 – The large nappe layer of Lower

. * ''Mémoire sur les refoulements qui ont plissé l’écorce terrestre et sur le rôle des déplacements horizontaux'', 1908. * ''Œuvres géologiques de Marcel Bertrand'' (with Emmanuel de Margerie; 3 volumes, 1927–31) – Geological works of Marcel Bertrand.WorldCat Search
published works

References

* This article is based on a translation of an equivalent article at the

French Wikipedia The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has article ...

, source listed a
Archive Annales des Mines

Encyclopædia Britannica India
(Marcel Bertrand) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bertrand, Marcel Alexandre French geologists 1847 births 1907 deaths Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Members of the French Academy of Sciences École Polytechnique alumni