Alfred de Quervain (geophysicist)

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Alfred de Quervain, 1914
Alfred de Quervain measuring the wind in Greenland
The participants of the Swiss Greenland Expedition in 1912
The participants of the Swiss Greenland Expedition

Alfred de Quervain (born June 15, 1879 in Uebeschi near Thun , † January 13, 1927 in Zurich ) was a Swiss geophysicist and Arctic researcher .

Life

De Quervain was already an intern at the Observatoire de Météorologie Dynamique in Trappes near Versailles during his student days and in the winter of 1900/01 he carried out some ascents of recording balloons (forerunners of radiosondes ) in Russia . He received his doctorate in 1903 with the dissertation The uplift of the atmospheric isotherms in the Swiss Alps and their relationship to the height limits.

From 1902 to 1906 de Quervain was secretary of the international commission for the study of the higher atmosphere in Strasbourg , where he qualified as a private lecturer in meteorology in 1905 . From 1906 until his death, de Quervain was director-adjunct at the Meteorological Central Institute in Zurich (today MeteoSwiss ) and from 1913 titular professor at the University of Zurich and at the ETH Zurich .

Together with Auguste Piccard , de Quervain constructed a new type of seismograph around 1922 , which was used in an earthquake control station of the Swiss Seismological Service . De Quervain was the director of this service.

The Swiss Greenland Expedition on their way home in Copenhagen
The Swiss Greenland Expedition on their way home in Copenhagen
Advance into the Greenland Ice Sheet by 1913

Known to the public de Quervain was his Greenland expeditions in 1909 and 1912. During the expedition of 1912 under his leadership the first time the mittelgrönländische was inland from Ilulissat to Sermilik traversed a significantly longer distance than Fridtjof Nansen had traveled in South Greenland 1888th The architect Roderich Fick was responsible for the geographic location and surveying work , the other expedition participants in the crossing were the doctor Hans Hößli from St. Moritz and the engineer Karl Gaule from Zurich. For the first time, the Greenland glaciers were recorded in a height profile . De Quervain described his expeditions in the books Through Greenland's Ice Desert (1911) and Across the Greenland Ice (1914).

Quervain Peak , a mountain in Grahamland on the Antarctic Peninsula , was named after de Quervain .

The surgeon Fritz de Quervain was his brother.

He was married to Ella, daughter of Pastor Edwin Nil .

Works (selection)

  • The uplift of the atmospheric isotherms in the Swiss Alps and their relationship to the altitude limits . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1903. Diss. Phil. Bern.
  • Through Greenland's ice desert: Journey of the German-Swiss Greenland Expedition in 1909 to the inland ice . Strasbourg; Leipzig: Josef Singer, 1911.
  • Across the Greenland Ice: the Swiss Greenland Expedition 1912/13 . Basel: Kober, 1914.
  • Alfred de Quervain, Paul-Louis Mercanton : Results of the Swiss Greenland Expedition . Basel; Geneva; Lyon: Come. Georg & Co., 1920.

literature

  • Marcel de Quervain :  Quervain, Alfred de. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 42 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Schweizerisches Zeitgenossenlexikon / ed. by Hermann Aellen. 2nd edition 1932.
  • Biographical Lexicon of Deceased Swiss People, Vol. 2. 1948.
  • Stefan Kern: Alfred de Quervain. Explorer of physical extremes and traverser of the Greenland Ice Sheet . Zurich, Polar Archives Switzerland 2013. 40 pages with 16 illustrations, some in color.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The small encyclopedia , Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, volume 2, page 417
  2. ↑ a b online at Archive.org .
  3. ^ Arnold Heim: The Journey of the Swiss Greenlanders to the Great Karajak Ice Stream . In: Swiss illustrated magazine. Volume 14, 1910, pp. 39-41. ( e-periodica.ch ).
  4. ^ Arnold Heim : The Swiss Greenland Drivers and Dr. Cook . In: Switzerland - Swiss illustrated magazine . tape 13 , 1909, pp. CX – CXII ( e-periodica.ch ).
  5. ↑ Stephan Orth : The forgotten Arctic pioneers . In: Spiegel Online on August 2, 2012, accessed on February 10, 2020.
  6. ↑ Friederike Hellerer (ed.): Roderich Fick - master builder in Herrsching . Herrsching 2007, pp. 20/21.
  7. ^ Alfred de Quervain: Across the Greenland Ice Sheet: the Swiss Greenland Expedition 1912/13. Verlag Ernst Reinhardt, Munich 1914, p. 10.
  8. ↑ NZZ Format - Secrets in the Glacier. Film texts ( Memento from March 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Project Greenland Crossing ( Memento from 23 August 2007 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Quervain, Alfred de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Uebeschi
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1927
Place of death Zurich