Dogger
A historical or regional name for Middle Jurassic rocks in continental European literature; also a distinct British lithostratigraphic Dogger Formation in North Yorkshire.
Language and route: German stratigraphic use borrowed from Yorkshire English rock term. Yorkshire rock/mining dogger → German Dogger (Middle Jurassic) → international historical usage; unrelated to fishing vessels called doggers.
Literal gloss: Yorkshire rock or concretion term; etymology uncertain
The name and its history
Quarrying term before 1817; formation recorded by Young (1817), then adopted in broader European stratigraphy · 1817 formation usage; European extension later
- What does the word literally mean?
- Regional rock or concretion-name, with uncertain deeper derivation.
- What did the original author mean?
- Yorkshire geologists used “Dogger” for a locally resistant rock above alum-bearing shale; continental workers extended the term to a much larger Middle Jurassic interval.
- Why was the name needed?
- Geologists sought convenient correlations between distinct regional divisions (German Brown Jura, English oolitic rocks and fossil-defined stages).
- What evidence supported the original concept?
- BGS traces specific use to Young (1817) and the miner/quarry vocabulary; ammonite zones made the later broad temporal comparison possible.
- How has geology changed the concept?
- International ICS epochs are formally Middle Jurassic; a local British Dogger Formation is neither synonymous nor necessarily identical in rock character to every Middle Jurassic unit.
Further historical context
The word is especially pedagogically valuable as an example of a local quarry term reinterpreted as a time-period nickname in another language.
The Yorkshire Dogger Formation must remain distinguishable from the German use for the entire Middle Jurassic.
Editorial qualification
Do not derive the geological term from the Dutch fishing vessel or Dogger Bank; that is a different homograph.
Related names
Middle Jurassic · Aalenian · Bajocian · Bathonian · Lithology
Sources
- ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart, 2026/06 — Official current ranks and names; ages are subject to revision
- British Geological Survey, Middle Jurassic stratigraphical framework, Dogger — Local quarrying term, nineteenth-century Yorkshire Dogger Formation, different unit from chronostratigraphic Middle Jurassic
- Duden, Dogger (geology) — German lexical borrowing from English Yorkshire rock-name
- Middle Jurassic of Britain, Geological Conservation Review introduction — Middle Jurassic naming sequences and classification