Alexandre Brongniart (5 February 1770 – 7 October 1847) was a French chemist, mineralogist, geologist, paleontologist, and zoologist, who collaborated with Georges Cuvier on a study of the geology of the region around Paris.

[4] He was appointed in 1800 by Napoleon's minister of the interior Lucien Bonaparte director of the revitalized porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, holding this role until death.

The young man took to the position a combination of his training as a scientist— especially as a mining engineer relevant to the chemistry of ceramics— his managerial talents and financial acumen and his cultivated understanding of neoclassical esthetic.

[4] This problem was resolved in 1804 by Pierre Latreille by replacing Batrachia into a class called Amphibians, and the rest of the Reptilia grouping was retained.

[4] Their paper "Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris" identified nine formations that had been formed over a very long period of time.

[4] The formations, starting with the oldest, were called the Chalk, Argile Plastique, Calcaire grossier, Calcaire silicieux, Formation gypseuse, Sabels et Gres marins, Gres sans coquilliers, Terrain d’eau douce, and Limon d’aterrissement.

[4] He used the alternation of these marine and fresh water layers to disprove the theory that strata was deposited by a shrinking ocean.

In 1822, Brongniart published the first full-length study of trilobites in which he classified a variety from Europe and North America and tried to group them based on age.