He initially studied medicine at Strasbourg, but his interest subsequently switched to geology, and from 1836 onward, he worked as an assistant to Louis Agassiz. In 1838 he published Observations géologiques sur le Jura Soleurois (Geological observations involving the Solothurn Jura), in which he introduced the "concept of facies" to describe the environments and conditions of the origin of sedimentary rocks based on their petrographic attributes and fossil affiliations.[1][2]