Google Celebrates 374th birthday of 'Father of Geology' Nicholas Steno

'Father of Geology' Nicholas Steno

Google today has a homepage doodle to celebrate the 374th birthday of Nicholas Steno, who is widely regarded as the father of modern geology.

The Google logo, therefore, has been drawn like layers of the Earth, from fossils far below the ground to the greenery of the planet's surface.

Steno was born in Copenhagen, Denmark as Niels Stensen, but he best known as Nicholas Stenonis or Nicholas Steno. As a young man, he studied medicine and eventually moved to Italy. There, he was awarded a hospital post by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, which provided

Steno with time for research, according to a bio published  by UC Berkeley.

In studying the remains of a shark, however, Steno found that its teeth looked very much like objects that had been found inside rocks, now known as fossils.

"Steno's work on shark teeth led him to the more general question of how any solid object could come to be found inside another solid object, such as a rock or a layer of rock," his bio said. "The 'solid bodies within solids' that attracted Steno's interest included, not only fossils as we would define them today, but minerals, crystals, incrustations, veins, and even entire rock layers or strata."

Steno figured that fossils were formed when particles in water drifted to the bottom, creating layers. His findings were published in a book known as Prodromus, landing him the name "Father of Stratigraphy."

Despite his groundbreaking work, Steno's life as a scientist was rather short-lived once he converted to Catholicism. He became a priest and then a bishop and spent the remainder of his life ministering in Germany, Denmark, and Norway. He was beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

For more on Google's doodles, meanwhile, see the slideshow below. One of the company's more popular doodles last year was a playable image in honor of musician Les Paul, which eventually got its own standalone site. The company has also honored Gumby creator Art Clokey, Muppets creator Jim Henson, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, and Intel co-founder Robert Noyce.

In 2011, it was revealed that Google obtained a patent for its popular homepage doodles, covering "systems and methods for enticing users to access a Web site."