Carl Ochsenius

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Carl Ochsenius

Carl Christian Ochsenius (born March 9, 1830 in Kassel , † December 9, 1906 in Marburg an der Lahn ) was a German geologist .

Life

Ochsenius' father was a court official in Kassel. After graduating from high school in Kassel, Ochsenius studied at the Polytechnic there from 1847 to 1851 and then went on to do an apprenticeship in mining. Since the career prospects were bad at the time, he traveled to Chile on the mediation of Robert Bunsen as an assistant to Rudolph Amandus Philippi . Both researched the geology of the Andes and built up a scientific collection. When Philippi became a professor in Santiago de Chile, Ochsenius was in charge of his estate. In 1858 he became a coal mining geologist in Coronelin the Cousiño mines and took them over a little later. He headed them until 1869 and worked worldwide as a geological expert: in 1865 he traveled to oil regions in the USA, in 1866 in Tunis, in 1869 in Sicily (sulfur mining), in 1867 in Bolivia (guano, coal), in 1870 in Peru (ores) and 1878/79 in Utah and Nevada for French banks. From 1871 he lived as a private scholar in Marburg . Due to a national bankruptcy in Chile he lost his fortune and was forced to work as an appraiser for the company Kali-Bergbau from 1885.

plant

In 1877 Ochsenius formulated the bar theory (threshold theory) about the formation of salt deposits in arid climates, for which he is still known today. Thereafter, the salt deposits were created by barriers that only let as much or less fresh sea water into a part of the sea (sea bay) as evaporated there. According to Ochsenius, when completely closed off, potash deposits formed like in the Magdeburg-Halberstädter Basin with a barrier from Helgoland to Porta Westfalica. He wrongly assumed the formation in deep sea basins (because of the thickness of the German salt deposits), he did not yet consider the possibility of lowering the sea basins. The barriers were created, for example, by tectonic uplift or silting. As a recent case he considered the Kara-Bogas-Gol in the Caspian Sea. Ochsenius's theory was the dominant theory of salt deposit formation until the beginning of the 20th century, but was later modified.

Private

On January 1st, 1860, Ochsenius became a Freemason in Chile ; In 1871 he was a co-founder of the Marburg Lodge Marc Aurel zum Flammenden Stern . His tombstone in the Marburg cemetery showed the Masonic words True knowledge leads to faith. He wrote the aphorism It doesn't matter how old you are, but how old you are .

His wife Luise came from the old Thessian knightly family of the von Rau zu Holzhausen .

Honors

In the scientific nomenclature, two types of plants (the geranium family Geranium ochsenii Phil., The mallow family Abutilon ochsenii Phil.) And animals (the ground beetle Ceroglossus ochsenii Germain, the snail Bulimus ochsenii Dunker) have been named after him, all of which are native to Chile are.

Fonts

  • The formation of rock salt deposits and their mother liquor salts with special consideration of the Douglashall flot in the Egeln'schen Mulde . Hall: CEM Pfeffer, 1877
  • Contributions to the explanation of the formation of rock salt deposits and their mother liquor salts . In: Nova Acta of the Ksl. Leop.-Carol.-German Academy of Natural Scientists, Volume XL, No. 4, Dresden 1878, pp. 123–166 Archives
  • Chile. Country and people. Briefly described after twenty years of own observations and those of others . Leipzig / Prague: Freytag / Tempsky, 1884
  • On the Formation of Rock-Salt Beds and Mother-Liquor Salts . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 40, 1888, pp. 181-187 Archives

literature

  • Helmut Mayr:  Ochsenius, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 413 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Waldemar Weissermel : On the 100th birthday of Carl Ochsenius. (Memorial speech) . In: Journal of the German Society for Geosciences , Volume 82 (1930), pp. 229–236
  • Claudio Ochsenius: Carl-Christian Ochsenius. A life history through two worlds and the antipodes of two centuries of a German geologist and naturalist (1830-1906). A contribution to the history of geosciences. With the collaboration of Dipl.-Translator Erika Veit-Ochsenius. Singing at Hohentwiel / El Arrayán, Santiago 1999.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otfried Wagenbreth , History of Geology in Germany, Springer 2015, p. 142
  2. ^ List of members Leopoldina, Carl Ochsenius
personal data
SURNAME Ochsenius, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ochsenius, Carl Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1906
Place of death Marburg / Lahn