Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen

Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen (25 March 1800 – 15 February 1889) was a German geologist.

Dechen was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1834 to 1841, after which he became director of the Prussian mining department while stationed at Bonn.

[2] In the early years he made journeys to study the mining systems of other countries, and with this object he visited England and Scotland in company with Karl von Oeynhausen (1797–1865).

[2] He made numerous contributions to geological literature; notably the following: The work that gave him the most renown was a geological map of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia in 35 sheets on the scale of 1-80,000, issued with two volumes of explanatory text (1855–1882).

The mineral "Vondechenite" is named after Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen in 2016.