Alfred Harker

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Alfred Harker (born February 19, 1859 in Kingston-upon-Hull , † July 28, 1939 ) was a British geologist who dealt with petrology and the geology of Scotland.

Life

Harker was the son of a grain merchant from Yorkshire and studied at Cambridge University (St. John's College) with a master's degree in 1882. He then lectured on physics at Newnham College. From 1884 he was a demonstrator in the Faculty of Geology under Thomas McKenny Hughes (1832-1917) in Cambridge. In 1885 he became a fellow of St. John's College. In 1887 he examined metamorphic rocks in the Ardennes . In 1891 he accompanied Hughes to the International Geological Congress in Washington, DC In 1892 he was Lecturer , 1904 University Lecturer and 1908 Reader in Petrology. In addition, he began from 1895 at the invitation of Archibald Geikie for the Geological Survey of Great Britain in Scotland, especially the Isle of Skye and other islands in the Inner Hebrides to map. During this time he also became a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Later (1889) he worked with John Edward Marr in Cambridge on work on volcanic rocks in the Lake District . In 1931 he retired and became a lifetime fellow at St. John's College. He was an honorary curator of rocks at the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge University, which opened in 1904.

Harker was one of the pioneers of the use of thin sections under the microscope in petrology.

In 1922 he received the Wollaston Medal and in 1907 the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London. From 1916 to 1918 he was President of the Geological Society of London . In 1902 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society , whose Royal Medal he received in 1935. He was honorary doctorate from McGill University and the University of Edinburgh .

Honors

The Dorsa Harker on the moon is named after him, as well as Mount Harker in Antarctica and the Harker Glacier in South Georgia and the mineral harkerite , which was first found on Skye. Special diagrams about the chemical composition of igneous rocks are called Harker diagrams .

Fonts

  • Petrology for Students: an introduction to the study of rocks under the microscope, Cambridge University Press 1895, 8th edition 1957
  • The tertiary igneous rocks of Skye, Memoir Geological Survey of Scotland, Glasgow, HM Stationary Office, 1904
  • The natural history of igneous rocks, Macmillan 1909, New York, Hafner 1965
  • Metamorphism: a study of the transformations of rock-masses, London, Methuen 1932, 2nd edition 1939
  • The West highlands and the Hebrides; a geologist's guide for amateurs, Cambridge University Press 1941
  • Notes on geological map reading, Cambridge, 2nd edition, 1926

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Harker diagram
personal data
SURNAME Harker, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British geologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston-upon-Hull
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1939