Jean Francois Aubuisson de Voisins (1769 1841) was a French geologist and engineer who studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg together with Humboldt, von Buch and Jameson. Werner had coined the term geognosy to define a science based on the recognition of the order, position and relation of the layers forming the earth. His theory of the marine origins of the Earth's crust (Neptunism) was widely accepted at the time. Aubuisson however showed that igneous rocks such as basalt were similar to surface lava flows, and were not chemical precipitates of the ocean. His two-volume Traite de...

Jean Francois Aubuisson de Voisins (1769 1841) was a French geologist and engineer who studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg together with Humboldt, von Buch and Jameson. Werner had coined the term geognosy to define a science based on the recognition of the order, position and relation of the layers forming the earth. His theory of the marine origins of the Earth's crust (Neptunism) was widely accepted at the time. Aubuisson however showed that igneous rocks such as basalt were similar to surface lava flows, and were not chemical precipitates of the ocean. His two-volume Traite de...