Geneviève Termier (2 April 1917 – 27 May 2005) was a French

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

and evolutionist. She was a research director at the

French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...

. In 1942 she went to

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

where she met her husband

Henri Henri is the French form of the masculine given name Henry, also in Estonian, Finnish, German and Luxembourgish. Bearers of the given name include: People French nobles * Henri I de Montmorency (1534–1614), Marshal and Constable of France * H ...

. Their son Michel was born three years later. She specialized in the study of

gastropods Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. Ther ...

. She also studied the

South-East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Australian mainland, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia i ...

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum (biology), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear e ...

s. Together with her husband Henri Termier, she is considered one of the greatest French paleontologist of the 20th century. Geneviève Termier suffered from a long and painful illness, and on 27 May 2005 in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, near Paris, she died at 88 years of age.

Selected bibliography

* ''Paléontologie marocaine'' - 5 volumes * ''Histoire géologique de la biosphère'' * ''Formation des continents et progression de la vie'' * ''L'évolution de la lithosphère'' * ''Quelques faits paléogéographiques et paléoécologiques relatifs à la limite de l'antécambrien et du cambrien'' * ''Bryozoaires du paléozoïque supérieur de l'afghanistan'' * ''Réflexions sur la sédimentation marine dans ses rapports avec l'érosion continentale'' * ''Generalites sur les invertebres fossiles'' * ''La trame géologique de l'histoire humaine'' * ''Initiation à la paléontologie'' * ''Sur la partie inférieure du flysch crétacé du djurjura'' - all with Henri Termier

References

1917 births 2005 deaths French paleontologists French women paleontologists French women geologists 20th-century French women scientists {{geologist-stub