Friedrich August von Alberti

Who was Friedrich August von Alberti?

Friedrich August von Alberti was a German geologist whose ground-breaking 1834 publication recognized the unity of the three characteristic strata that compose the sedimentary deposits of the Triassic period in Northern Europe. From the fossils contained in the three distinct layers— of red bed sandstones, capped by chalk, followed by black shales— that are found throughout Germany and Northwest Europe, and are called the 'Trias', Alberti detected that they formed a single stratigraphic formation; today it would be termed a system. He identified the Triassic as bearing a unique fossil fauna, bounded by the Permian extinction below and by another extinction above.

Alberti grew up in Stuttgart and Rottweil where he was educated at the Gymnasium and went to the military school in Stuttgart. Afterwards he went back to Rottweil, a town 100 km south of Stuttgart. He learned the salt processing system and became a Salinentechniker. He was quickly promoted to Salineninspektor. In 1823, based on his perception of the area's geology, he had an idea to drill for salt in Rottenmünster. Eight months later the team had success and found salt, in a location where no one would have considered the possibility of finding salt.