Haroun Tazieff

Haroun Tazieff (born May 11, 1914 in Warsaw , † February 2, 1998 in Paris ) was a French volcanologist.

Life

Tazieff was born in Warsaw, the second son of a Tatar father (a doctor) and a Polish mother (a chemist and doctor of political science). After the early death of his father at the front in World War I, he and his mother moved to Belgium via Saint Petersburg in 1921 . He was in France from 1927 to 1929 but returned to Belgium and became a Belgian citizen in 1936. As a student he played soccer, rugby and was a university champion in boxing. He studied agriculture in Gembloux (graduated in 1938) and geology in Liège (graduated in 1944). He was in the resistance during World War II. He then worked as an engineer in tin mining in the Congo ( Katanga ), where his interest in volcanoes began. As a geologist in the geological service of the Belgian Congo, he observed the Kituro eruption in 1948 . In 1957 he became a lecturer (Chargé de Cours) at the Free University of Brussels, where he founded a center for volcanology, and from 1958 in the same function at the Faculté de Science in Paris , where he became director of the laboratory for volcanology at the Institut de physique de globe has been. He began worldwide expeditions to volcanoes. From 1972 he was Maître and then Director de Recherche of the CNRS .

He was one of the first to observe submarine eruptions (Azores, 1957 to 1963), and he discovered the lava lake at Nyiragongo . As an early supporter of plate tectonics, he interpreted volcanism in the Afar triangle and the African rift valley and measured the drifting apart of the African continent in the Afar.

He became known for his films about volcanic eruptions, which he brought closer to a larger audience since the 1950s, for example Les rendez-vous du diable (1960). In 1967 Tazieff was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Documentary . He was also with Jacques Cousteau on his early expeditions with the Calypso in 1951 .

He had been a French citizen since 1971. From 1984 to 1986 he was French State Secretary for Disaster Preparedness under Laurent Fabius and was a government advisor in France on several occasions. He was active in the eco-movement in France. Tazieff publicly denied human-made global warming and was of the opinion that the ozone hole occurred before the invention of fluorocarbons. He was also a speleologist.

From 1973 to 1976 he was entrusted by the French government with the supervision of the Pelée and Soufrière volcanoes . In 1976 there was a violent public argument with his superior at the Institut de physique du globe de Paris Claude Allègre and the director of the volcanological observatory on Guadeloupe, Michel Feuillard, over the question of whether the 70,000 inhabitants on the slope of the Soufrière volcano in Guadeloupe should be evacuated should be. Tazieff advised against it, saw no imminent danger from pyroclastic currents and was thus right.

From 1988 to 1995 he was President of the Comité supérieur des risques volcaniques. In 2000 the asteroid (8446) Tazieff was named after him. The same applies to the Tazieff Rocks in the Antarctic.

Popular scientific writings

Cratères en feu , Édition Arthaud, 1951 (new edition Gallimard jeunesse 1973 and 4th edition Arthaud 1978)
Gates of hell. Vulkankunde , Rüschlikon-Zürich, Müller, around 1950
L'Eau et le Feu , Edition Arthaud, 1954. German edition: Under the spell of the volcanoes. Adventure of a geologist in the East African trench , Brockhaus 1955
Les rendez-vous du diable , Édition Hachette, 1959, 1961
Birth of a volcano - African adventure , Lux 1962
Etna and its neighbors - Stromboli, Vulcano, Lipari , Lux 1960
The Afar Triangle. In: Scientific American . February 1970
Histoires de volcans , Le Livre de Poche , 1978.
with Clément Borgal and Norbert Casteret 15 aventures sous terre , Édition Gautier-Languereau, 970.
L'Etna et les volcanologues , Édition Arthaud, 1973
Vingt-cinq ans sur les volcans du globe , 2 volumes, Edition Nathan, 1974-1975.
L'odeur du soufre: expédition en Afar , Édition Stock, 1975.
Cordillères, séismes et volcans , Laffont, 1975
Niragongo, ou le volcan interdit , Flammarion, 1975. German edition Niragongo , Rüschlikon-Zürich, Müller 1980
Le gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Martin , Arthaud, 1952, new edition 1976 Online at Association de recherches spéléologiques internationales de la Pierre Saint-Martin, pdf
Jouer avec le feu , Seuil 1976
La Soufrière et autres volcans: la volcanologie en danger. Édition Flammarion 1979
Ouvrez donc les yeux: conversations sur quelques points brûlants d'actualité (conversations with Claude Mossé), Laffont 1980.
with Claude Villers Ça sent le soufre , Édition Nathan 1981.
Les volcans et la dérive des continents , Presses universitaires de France, 1973, 1984, 1991, German edition Vulkanismus und Kontinentwanderung , DVA 1974
Sur l´Etna , Flammarion 1984, German edition The Mount Etna, its dangers, its future , Busse-Seewald 1988
Quand la terre tremble , 3rd edition, Fayard 1986
La prévision des séismes , Hachette, Collection questions de science, 1987
Les volcans , Hachette littérature 1987
with Max Derruau Le volcanisme et sa prévention , Masson 1990
with Bernard Amy, Florence Trystram: Sur l'Etna , 3rd edition, Flammarion, 1991
Les défis et la chance: ma vie , Édition Stock - L. Pernoud, 2 volumes, 1991–1992 (autobiography, volume 1: De Pétrograd au Niragongo, volume 2: Le Vagabond des Volcans)
La terre va-t-elle cesser de tourner?: Pollutions réelles, pollutions imaginaires , 2nd edition, Édition Seghers, 1992.
Erebus - Volcan Antarctique , Arthaud 1978 and Collection Babel, Terres d'aventures. Actes Sud. 1994
Volcans , Édition Bordas, 1996.

Movies

Les Rendez-vous du Diable , 1958/1959
Les eaux souterraines 1961
Le Volcan interdit , 1966
Afar ou la dérive des continents , 1975
Niragongo 1976
Erebus, volcan des glaces , 1977
Etna , 1977
Etna 89 , 1991
TV series Haroun Tazieff raconte sa terre , eight episodes, 1984, Société nationale de télévision française
Retour à Samarkand , 1991, TV series
Le feu de la Terre , 1993

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Tazieff The Afar triangle , Scientific American 1970
↑ Minor Planet Circ. 41383

personal data
SURNAME	Tazieff, Haroun
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French volcanologist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 11, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH	Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH	February 2, 1998
Place of death	Paris

[1] Tazieff The Afar triangle , Scientific American 1970

[2] Minor Planet Circ. 41383