Ferdinand von Hochstetter

Von Hochstetter was born in Esslingen, then in the kingdom of Württemberg, to Christian Ferdinand and his second wife, Sophie Orth.

Having received his early education at the evangelical seminary at Maulbronn, Ferdinand proceeded to the University of Tübingen and the Tübinger Stift; there, under Friedrich August von Quenstedt, the interest he already felt in geology became permanently fixed, and he obtained his doctor's degree and a travelling scholarship.

[1] He then travelled to Vienna where in 1853, he joined the staff of the Imperial Geological Survey of Austria and was engaged until 1856 in parts of Bohemia, especially in the Bohemian Forest, and in the Fichtel Hills and Karlsbad mountains.

Almost immediately he met the German scientist Julius von Haast who had also recently arrived in New Zealand, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.

In these later years he explored portions of Turkey and eastern Russia, and he published papers on a variety of geological, palaeontological and mineralogical subjects.

[12] Detailed descriptions in his diaries were helpful in 2011, when researchers managed to locate the silica terraces on Lake Rotomahana, which was buried in the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera.

A good deal is known of his personal life through his documented correspondence with friend and colleague Julius von Haast[14] He died in Oberdöbling near Vienna, at age 55 from complications of diabetes.