Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How did Alexandre Brongniart choose the name Jurassic Period?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Jurassic Period
Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the late Jurassic Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.
The French geologist and mineralogist Alexandre Brongniart named the Jurassic Period early in the 19th century after the Jura Mountains, which are located between France and Switzerland.1
Much of the foundational research conducted by early geologists to correlate rock strata and establish a relative geologic time scale was performed on these specific Jurassic formations in western Europe.1