Geodiversitas
24 (4) - Pages 725-752Jean Miquel is one of the most important amateur naturalists who contributed, across the transition of the 19th and 20th centuries, to the improvement of the first Cambro-Ordovician stratigraphical charts on the southern Montagne Noire (Languedoc). A detailed knowledge of the regional geology on the area surrounding the locality where he was born (Barroubio) permitted him to subdivide properly these outcrops according to lithological and pale-ontological features, mainly the Lower-Middle Cambrian and the Arenigian (Lower Ordovician). He defined five Cambrian trilobite species and one echinoderm species. This paper offers a panorama of the evolution of historic concepts developed in the paleontology and stratigraphy of the Languedocian Lower Paleozoic during Miquel's life. This allows a better understanding of the influence in Languedoc of the first paleontological findings that took place in other regions, such as Wales, North America, Bohemia and the Armorican Massif.
Cambrian, Ordovician, Montagne Noire, France, paleontology, stratigraphy, history of sciences