Von Hochstetter was born in
Esslingen, then in the kingdom of Württemberg, to Christian Ferdinand and his second wife, Sophie Orth. His father was a parson who also published on botanical and geological subjects. Having received his early education at the evangelical seminary at
Maulbronn, Ferdinand proceeded to the
University of Tübingen and the
Tübinger Stift. Under
Friedrich August von Quenstedt, the interest he already felt in
geology became permanently fixed, and he obtained his doctor's degree. Hochstetter was awarded a travelling scholarship. He then travelled to Vienna where in 1853, he joined the staff of the
Imperial Geological Survey of Austria and was engaged until 1856 in parts of
Bohemia, especially in the
Bohemian Forest, and in the
Fichtel Hills and Karlsbad mountains. His excellent reports established his reputation. Thus he came to be chosen as geologist to the
Novara expedition (1857-1859), and made numerous valuable observations in the voyage round the world. The Novara arrived in New Zealand on 22 December 1858. Almost immediately he met the German scientist
Julius von Haast who had also recently arrived in New Zealand, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. Polymath
Arthur Purchas convinced von Hochstetter to stay in New Zealand, where he spent the next nine months of his life. In 1859, Ferdinand was employed by the
government of New Zealand to make a first geological survey of the islands. His survey of old Lake Rotomahana and the
Pink and White Terraces provides the only primary evidence of the Terrace locations today. Between 2016 and 2020, his survey diary was reverse engineered to provide coordinates of the Pink, Black and White Terraces. On his return he was appointed in 1860 professor of
mineralogy and geology at the
Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute in
Vienna; from 1874 to 1875, he was the rector there. His analysis of the tsunami generated by the
1868 Arica (Peru) earthquake is well known for its contribution to understanding of tsunami propagation. The resulting tsunami caused damaging surges in a number of regions in the Pacific region, including fatalities on the
Chatham Islands. Von Hochstetter, charted the trajectory of the event throughout the Pacific. This also enabled an estimate of the depth of the Pacific Ocean to be calculated. In 1872, he became the
natural history tutor of
Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. In 1876, he was made superintendent of the
Imperial Natural History Museum. In these later years he explored portions of
Turkey and eastern
Russia, and he published papers on a variety of geological,
palaeontological and mineralogical subjects. In 1869, he was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society and in 1884, was granted a hereditary knighthood by the Emperor of Austria. Detailed descriptions in his diaries were helpful in 2011, when researchers managed to locate the
silica terraces on
Lake Rotomahana, which was buried in the
1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera. == Publications and cartographic works ==