Melchior Neumayr

After some experience in field-geology under Karl Wilhelm von Gümbel, he joined the Austrian geological survey in 1868.

Four years later he returned to Heidelberg, but in 1873 he was appointed professor of palaeontology in Vienna, and occupied this post until his death.

[1][2][3] His more detailed researches pertained to the Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites and to Tertiary freshwater molluscs; in these studies he sought to trace the descent of the species.

[4][5] Based on the gastropod fauna, Neumayr established the idea of what he called a Jurassic seaway extending from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia (also called as the central Mediterranean) which had flooded wide tracts of Eurasia.

He was a keen climber and was a member of the Deutscher und Oesterreich Alpin Verein but gave up membership in 1872 and in later life heart problems prevented him from outdoor activity but he continued to write in the Mittheilungen of the Deutscher und Oesterreich Alpin Verein.