paleogeography

Note: Probably coined on multiple occasions. The geologist Thomas Sterry Hunt regarded the word as a neologism when he used it in 1872 ("The student of organic fossils constructs from their history the sciences of paleophytology and paleozoölogy; and we may also, from the records of the attendant physical changes, construct what may be appropriately named paleogeography, or, the geographical history of these ancient geological periods." —"The Paleogeography of the North American Continent," "Read November 12, 1872," Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, vol. 4 [1873], p. 417). French paléogéographie was used in the table of contents of Hervé Faye's translation of Alexander von Humboldt's Kosmos (Cosmos, Essai d'une description physique du monde, première partie, Paris, 1847), though there is no corresponding word in the German text, which lacks a table of contents.