Archibald Geikie was born on December 28, 1835, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He was a Scottish geologist and writer. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. In 1855, he was appointed an assistant on the British Geological Survey. His first major assignment was to help Sir Roderick Murchison survey the highlands of Scotland with maps of the region being published in 1863. In 1893, Geikie published a larger and more detailed map of the region. When a separate branch of the Geological Survey was established in Scotland in 1867, he was appointed the director. In 1871, he became the Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Edinburgh. In 1873, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and received their Royal Medal in 1896. He served as the director of the Museum of Practical Geology (1882-1901), president of the Geological Society of London (1891-1892, 1906-1908), and president of the British Association (1892). He was the recipient of many honorary degrees from Oxford University, the University of Dublin and Glasgow. He received a knighthood in 1891, the Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1907, and the Order of Merit in 1914. Mount Geikie in the Canadian Rockies, Geikie Peak in the Grand Canyon, and the Geikie Slide in the Atlantic Ocean northwest of Scotland are named after him. He was the author of many books, e.g., "The Teaching of Geography" (1887), “Life of R. I. Murchison” (2 vols., 1877), "The Geology of Central and Western Fife and Kinross" (1900), "The Geology of Eastern Fife" (1902), "Scottish Reminiscences" (1904), "Landscape in History and other Essays" (1905), “Charles Darwin as a Geologist” (1909), "Birds of Shakespeare" (1916), and an autobiography “A Long Life's Work” (1924).

In 1871, he married Alice Gabrielle Anne Marie Pignatel (1851–1916). He died on November 10, 1924, in Haslemere, England.

Hanns Bruno Geinitz was born on October 16, 1814, in Altenberg, Hessen, Germany.

He was a German geologist, mineralogist, paleontologist, and author. He was educated at the universities of Berlin and Jena and received his Ph.D. in 1837. In 1850, he became Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the Royal Polytechnic School at Dresden, and in 1857, he was made director of the Royal Mineralogical and Geological Museum, the posts he held until 1894. He was distinguished for his research on the Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Saxony. He also described the graptolites of the local Silurian strata; and the flora of the coal-formation of the Altay Mountains and of Nebraska. From 1863 to 1878 he was one of the editors of the Neues Jahrbuch. He was awarded the Murchison Medal by the Geological Society of London in 1878. His son Franz Eugen Geinitz (1854–1925) became a Professor of Geology at the University of Rostock.

He married Margareta Will (1827-1906). He died on January 28, 1900, in Dresden, Sachsen, Germany.