Tillfried Cernajsek, Geological Survey of Austria, Vienna

In the year 1748 Emperor Franz I, the husband of Maria Theresia, bought the mineral collection of Ritter of Baillou of Florence. This acquisition formed the base of the so-called "Imperial Mineral Cabinet".
In 1763 the mining und Forest Academy of Schemnitz in Slovakia was founded ( today named Banska Stiavnica and Selmecbanya, respectively). In the same year Thadäus Peithner of Lichtenfels was appointed as professor of mining law and theoretical studies of minerals at the University of Vienna.
In 1775 the first scientific society was founded by Ignaz von Born, the chair of the Austrian masonic lodge, who also invented the amalgamation method.
Two years later Andreas Stütz published the first list of all mineral occurrences of Lower Austria.

In 1785 Karl Haidinger was distinguished with the gold medal of the Academy of Saint Petersburg for his systematic classification of mountain building strata.
In 1797 R. Townson published a report about his journey through Hungary supplemented by a geological map on which parts of eastern Austria are indicated.
In 1808 the Spanish nobleman Carlos de Gimbernat established a geognostic map with a section of the province of Tyrol.

In Austria a major step forward was achieved in the year 1811 with the foundation of the Museum Joanneum in Styria by Archduke Johann. The famous Friedrich Mohs took over the directorship and started a collection campaign of minerals and rocks which represented the base of the geological map of Styria.
In 1817 F. Mohs left the city of Graz to succeed Abraham G. Werner in Freiberg, Saxony. In Styria the compilation of rocks was continued by Mathias Joseph Anker and he compiled the first geologic map of Styria in the year 1830.
In 1822 C. Keferstein published the geognostic map of Germany showing also parts of the Alps and a special map of Tyrol.
In the following year 1823 Paul Partsch was charged by the assembly of the estates of Lower Austria to establish a geologic map of the Province of Lower Austria. Twenty years later the northern part was finished.
In 1833 Anton Ritter Spaun, the district magistrate, suggested the foundation of a geological survey for Upper Austria.
In 1835 Prince August Login Lobkowitz ordered the introduction of a collection of minerals to the imperial cabinet for mining and coinage. Friedrich Mohs became head of the Mining Museum ("Montanistisches Museum") and directed it until the year 1839. He was succeeded by Wilhelm Haidinger in 1840.
In 1836 and 1840 the geognostic-montanistic societies of Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Inner Austria, respectively, were founded.

In 1847 the geologic map by Morlot showing the surroundings of the cities of Leoben and Judenburg (Styria) at the scale 1: 144,000 was printed at the expense of the "Friends of Natural Sciences of Vienna". In the same year the General Geologic Map of the Austrian Empire compiled by Wilhelm Haidinger and Franz Hauer was published.
During this year the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Austria was founded. At the beginning its participation in geologic mapping was also discussed.
In Austria the year 1848 was characterized by a revolution between the insurgent bourgeois guards and the imperial troops which also affected Palais Rasumofsky (for example one can still see preserved and protected the entrance point of a bullet shot into the mirror of the working room of Count Rasumofsky by a Croatian soldier on Oct. 31, 1848).
In the following year on November 15, 1849 the Geological Survey of Austria was founded in the former Mining Museum at Heumarkt, Vienna. Wilhelm Haidinger became its first director. "Provisionally", the survey moved into its present home at Palais Rasumofsky in 1851.

Around the year 1850 Sir Roderic Impey Murchison visited the Alps repeatedly and concluded for the first time that the Western and Eastern Alps were geologically related and developed simultaneously.
In 1857 Eduard Suess took over the first chair of geology at the University of Vienna.
In 1860 the proposed amalgamation of the Geological Survey (for financial reasons) with the Academy of Sciences was successfully prevented.
In 1869 in the Kingdom of Hungary an independent Geological Survey was established.
On August 10, 1889 various museum collections were united into the newly founded Natural History Museum by Emperor Franz Josef I.

In 1891 the first Special Geologic Map at the scale 1.75,000 was printed. This series was continued until 1950 when the first map at the scale 1:50,000 was published.
During the 20th century the Geological Survey changed its name several times and in 1939 became part of the German "Reichsamt für Bodenforschung". This lasted until 1945 when it was reconstituted and again named "Geologische Bundesanstalt" (GBA). The main accomplishments during this period were the publication of several geological maps at the scale 1:75,000, and particularly the exemplary general map at the scale 1:500,000 of H. Vetters in 1933, which finally were followed by the map series at the scale 1:50,000 and the new general map 1:1 Million by P. Beck-Mannagetta in 1961. A major re-organization took place during the year 1977. The Survey's present activities are based on these recommendations and on those outlined by the National Law of Research of 1981.