Friedrich August von Alberti (September 4, 1795 – September 12, 1878) was a
German geologist whose ground-breaking 1834 publication recognized the unity of the three characteristic
strata that compose the sedimentary deposits of the
Triassic period in
Northern Europe. From the
fossils contained in the three distinct layers— of
red bed sandstones, capped by chalk (
Muschelkalk), followed by black shales— that are found throughout Germany and Northwest Europe, and are called the 'Trias' (Latin
trias meaning triad), Alberti detected that they formed a single
stratigraphic formation; today it would be termed a
system. He identified the Triassic as bearing a unique fossil fauna, bounded by the
Permian extinction below and by
another extinction above.