William Buckland

William Buckland DD FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist, writing the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus. His work proving that Kirkdale Cave had been a prehistoric hyena den, for which he was awarded the Copley Medal, was praised as an example of how scientific analysis could reconstruct events from the distant past. He was a pioneer in the use of fossilised faeces, for which he coined the term coprolites, to reconstruct ancient ecosystems.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William Buckland
• Page 113 - Rudwick, M. J. S., 2014, The Earth's Deep History: How it was Discovered and why it Matters: Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 331p.