Charles Depéret

Charles Jean Julien Depéret (25 June 1854 – 18 May 1929) was a French geologist and paleontologist. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Société géologique de France and dean of the Science faculty of Lyon.

Charles Depéret was born in Perpignan. He started his career as a military doctor from 1877 to 1888. Initially posted in Algeria, he was later active in Sathonay. In 1888, he became lecturer at Aix-Marseille University, and in 1889 he became professor of geology at the University of Lyon. He died in Lyon.

In 1892 he introduced the Burdigalian Stage (Lower Miocene) based on stratigraphic units found near Bordeaux and in the Rhône Valley. He was an advocate of the controversial prehistoric artifacts findings of Glozel. Along with Edward Drinker Cope, his name is associated with the so-called "Cope-Depéret rule", a law which asserts that in population lineages, body size tends to increase over evolutionary time.