Reinhard Maack

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reinhard Maack

Reinhard Maack (born October 2, 1892 in Herford , † August 26, 1969 in Curitiba , Brazil ) was a German geologist and explorer on three continents. As a scientist , he worked in several fields, was a geology professor in Brazil and was an early environmentalist.

Explorer and explorer

Rock paintings with a white lady

Reinhard Maack was born on October 2, 1892 in Herford ( Westphalia ) as the son of loadmaster Peter Maack and his wife Karoline.

From a land registry apprentice at the Herford district , he developed into an internationally highly decorated scientist. Among other things, he worked as a geographer , cartographer , paleontologist and geologist , painter, filmmaker, photographer and most recently a university professor in Paraná. From 1911 Maack took part in many scientific expeditions in southern Africa and Latin America and traveled halfway around the world.

He discovered prehistoric drawings (first the White Lady (White Lady) in the Brandberg Mountains ) and hitherto unknown Indian tribes; worked on the proof of the theory of continental drift and carried out countless works on cartographic, geographical and geological documentation.

Maack chose Brazil and in particular the southern state of Paraná as his second home, where he is considered one of the greatest naturalists and researchers of the country's natural history. He has made geographic- topographical, geobotanical and geological maps of the federal states of Paraná and Bahia , among others, which are still valid today .

His more than four decades of research, texts, films, drawings, paintings and photographs are of great value from an environmental, social, scientific, artistic and historical point of view. From his diaries , which he always kept on his expeditions, 13 handwritten books were created by 1926, which have been in the possession of the city of Herford since 2005 thanks to a family donation.

environmentalist

Maack was an early and tireless advocate for the preservation of natural spaces and warned of the effects of overexploitation of nature on the climate, vegetation, soils and the economy. That makes him one of the first environmentalists, clearly before ecology became a socially important issue. Quote: “In a short time, the original forest regions in the state of Paraná will be completely destroyed. The last remnants of the primeval forests will perhaps be able to withstand for a generation. The fate of the forests is already sealed because the state has not created the necessary natural reserves in an appropriate form. "

Life stations

education

From 1899 to 1907 Maack attended the Herford Citizens' School on Wilhelmsplatz . In 1907 he was employed at the Graphic Art Institute in Lüdenscheid. From 1908 to 1911 he trained as a surveyor in the Herford land registry . In 1928 he passed a supplementary examination for highly gifted students to subsequently obtain a university entrance qualification and began studying geology and geography in Berlin. After four semesters he interrupted his studies in 1930 to finish it in Berlin in 1936/37. In 1946 he received his doctorate from the University of Bonn .

German South West Africa

Maack traveled to German South West Africa in 1911 and was employed by the South West African land surveying department until 1914 , in particular for coastal surveying, large-scale triangulation and the division of government land into farms and pasture reserves. In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, he volunteered for the German protection force in South West Africa . He was captured in 1915 and interned in Namaland . He managed to escape from British captivity . That is why he stayed in Swakopmund from 1915 to 1917 under a false name (Karl Ritter) . During an expedition to the Brandberg massif - with the first ascent of the main summit, Königstein - he discovered the White Lady on January 4, 1918 . In the same year he received rehabilitation from the British-South African authorities and worked as a landscape painter in Swakopmund from 1918 to 1920. In 1919 he undertook two private expeditions to the Naukluft Mountains ( Namib ) to research and map the Tsondab dry river. From 1920 he worked in the surveying service for mapping gold , iron ore and copper deposits in the Kaokoveld for the Otavi Mining and Railway Company . He was employed by the Survey Service to transfer the properties of German farmers from the German cadastre to South African property titles.

Brazil

In 1923 Maack traveled to Brazil to help develop the gold deposits in Minas Gerais . His interest in the theory of continental drift was awakened by the discovery of geological similarities between the highlands of Westminas in Brazil and the Kaokoveld in southwest Africa and studies of tangential crustal displacement. In 1927 he worked on triangulations and the photogrammetric survey of the iron ore area of ​​Minas Gerais.

From 1930 to 1932 he organized the diamond mining on the Rio Tibagi in Paraná . He then bought his own land and used his fazenda as the first scientific research station in northern Paraná. On an expedition on the Rio Ivaí with a folding boat and dugout canoe in 1933/34 he surveyed the area.

In 1937 he returned to Brazil as authorized signatory of the Deutsche Bahnbau AG and carried out preliminary studies for the construction of a railway line through Central Paraná. From 1938 to 1942 he led the exploration of the coastal mountains of Paraná . During the Second World War he was interned on the Ilha Grande from 1942 to 1943 . In 1943, after being released from prison and entering civil service, worked as a geologist at the Museu Paranaense and at the Instituto e Pesquisas Tecnologicas in Curitiba at the request of the Paraná interventionalist . In 1946 he took over the chair for geology and palaeontology, later also for physical geography at the Federal University of Curitiba . In 1946 he became director of the geological and petrographic service at the Biological-Technical Institute in Curitiba. In 1956 he discovered the Xetá Indians in the jungle of Brazil. He took on the XVII. International Congress of Geography in Rio de Janeiro and on the XX. International Congress of Geologists in Mexico.

International research trips

From July 1959 he went on research trips to Iceland, Spitzbergen , Norway, Oslo, the excursion Spitzbergen Svalbard, water development work in Uganda and Kenya, investigation of geological and palaeo-geographical phenomena of the Kaoko Veld in the Namib Desert, Omaruru, Windhoek, Johannisburg, Congo, Accra (Liberia), Monrovia. Then he returned to Brazil. From 1964 research trips followed to Calcutta, Darjeeling, Himalaya, Tibet , New Delhi, Cairo and from 1965 he researched soils and forests in the Amazon.

Honors

  • In May 1959 Maack attended the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Alexander von Humboldt in Berlin; he received the Carl-Ritter-Medal .
  • 1967 Participation in the international symposium on problems of the Gondwanaland in Argentina, participation in the international symposium on "Continental Drift" in Uruguay and at the XXI. Congresso Brasileira de Geologia in Curitiba with awarding of the gold medal "José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva"
  • On July 1, 1969, he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

bibliography

Autobiography, diaries

  • It all began in Herford - the path through an eventful life . In: Herford Yearbook 1967 . VIII. Volume, Maximilian-Verlag Herford, pp. 7-79
  • Birgit Rausch: Among the Hottentots and Garimpeiros. The travel diaries of the Herford geologist and geographer Reinhard Maack (1892–1969) . In: Historical yearbook for the Herford district . Volume 14, 2007

Africa

  • The Brandberg. A contribution to the geography of South West Africa . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . 1924, pp. 1-14
  • The Tsondab Desert and the Ababes Mountains in South West Africa . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . 1924, pp. 13-29
  • in Abbé Henry Breuil: The White Lady of the Brandberg . London 1959, pp. 2, 26-31
  • The White Lady from Brandberg. Remarks on the rock paintings of the Paleolithic culture in Southwest Africa . In: Ethnologica (Society for Ethnology, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum), New Series, Volume 3, Cologne 1963

Brazil

  • About rock carvings in the state of Rio de Janeiro . In: Journal of Ethnology . 1926
  • A research trip across the highlands from Minas Gerais to Paranhyba . Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . 1926, pp. 310-323
  • Primeval forest and savannah in the landscape of the state of Parana . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . 1931, pp. 95-116
  • Mapa geologico do Estado do Parana 1: 750,000 . Curitiba 1953
  • About periods of icing and traces of icing in Brazil . In: Geologische Rundschau . Volume 45, 1957, pp. 547-595
  • Unidentified Indians in West Parana. The drama of a newly discovered Indian tribe in Brazil . In: Kosmos, magazine for friends of nature . Volume 58, Issue 9, Stuttgart 1962, pp. 385-394

Continental drift

  • The development of the Gondwana layers in southern Brazil and their relationship to the Karru formation in South Africa , Symp. Sur les series de Gondwana: 19e Corgr. Geol. Intern., Comptes Rend. Algiers 1952
  • Preliminary results of a research trip through South Africa on the problem of the earth's tangential crustal displacements . In: The Earth . Volume 89, 1958, pp. 284-305
  • Continental drift and geology of the South Atlantic Ocean . Berlin 1969

ecology

  • The change in the natural landscape in Northern Parana due to settlement and its consequences . In: Staden-Jahrbuch (Sao Paulo). Volume 7-8, 1960, pp. 21-32
  • The change in the natural landscape and its consequences in Northern Parana . In: Communications from the Federal Research Center for Forestry and Wood Management . (Reinbek-Hamburg), Volume 45, 1960, pp. 1-7

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Maack, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German explorer and universal scientist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Herford
DATE OF DEATH 26th August 1969
Place of death Curitiba (Brazil)