Cesare Emiliani

Cesare Emiliani (born December 8, 1922 in Bologna , † July 20, 1995 in Palm Beach Gardens , Florida ) was an Italian-American scientist. He is one of the most famous geologists and micropalaeontologists of the 20th century.

Life

Cesare Emiliani was born in Bologna . His parents were Luigi and Maria (Manfredidi) Emiliani. He studied geology at the University of Bologna in post-war Italy and obtained his doctorate in geology (micropalaeontology) in Bologna in 1945. After graduating, he worked from 1946 to 1948 as a micropalaeontologist at the Società Idrocarburi Nazionali in Florence . In 1948 he accepted the Rollin D. Salisbury Fellowship of the Department of Geology at the University of Chicago , where he received his second Ph.D. in geology (isotopic paleoclimatology) in 1950.acquired. From 1950 to 1956 he was a research fellow in Harold Urey's geochemistry laboratory at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago.

In 1957, Emiliani was working on foraminifera , particularly interested in the major climate change events that were known to have occurred during the Pleistocene . He was sure that valuable clues could be found in the tiny bowls found in the ubiquitous mud on the ocean floor. For this reason, he looked for a job where ships and trained personnel were available who could help him with the recovery of drill cores from deep-sea sediments for his studies. A conversation with Walton Smith convinced Cesare that the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Miami - later the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences - was the right place for his research; then he moved there that same year. In 1967 he was appointed chairman of the department of geology and geophysics of the institute. It was around this time that he established the geosciences department on the main University of Miami campus and remained its chairman until he left.

In 1995 he died in Palm Beach Gardens , Florida .

plant

Emiliani is considered to be the founder of palaeoceanography and developed the oxygen isotope level , which is still widely used today, despite modifications.

He established the knowledge in science that the ice ages of the last 500,000 years are linked to the Milanković cycles and thus supported Milankovitch's hypothesis, which revolutionized the history of the oceans and glaciations. He also advocated the US National Science Foundation's "LOCO Project" (LOCO = Long Cores) . The project was a success and provided strong clues to reconstruct the history of the oceans and also served as a test of the hypotheses of ocean floor spreading and plate tectonics .

In his later years he devoted a calendar reform much of his time, on the concept of the Holocene calendar was based around the BC-AD chronology close -gap that the lack of a 0 years resulted.

honors and awards

Cesare Emiliani was honored by naming the genus Emiliania , which includes the taxon Emiliania huxleyi , which was previously assigned to Coccolithus . He was also honored in 1983 with the Vega Medal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography and in 1989 with the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences for his isotope studies on foraminifera of plankton from the Pleistocene and Holocene .

Common works

• Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology, & the Evolution of Life & the Environment. Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-40949-7 .
• The Scientific Companion: Exploring the Physical World with Facts, Figures, and Formulas. (= Wiley Popular Science ). 2nd Edition. Wiley, 1995, ISBN 0-471-13324-8 .
• Dictionary of Physical Sciences. Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-503652-2 .

Outstanding work

• Depth habitats of some species of pelagic foraminifera as indicated by oxygen isotope ratios. In: American Journal of Science. 252, 1954, pp. 149-158.
• Temperature of Pacific bottom waters and polar superficial waters during the tertiary. In: Science. 119, 1954, pp. 853-855.
• Oligocene and Miocene temperature of the equatorial and subtropical Atlantic Ocean. In: Journal of Geology. 64, 1956, pp. 281-288.
• On paleotemperatures of Pacific bottom waters. In: Science. 123, 1956, pp. 460-461.
• Temperature and age analysis of deep sea cores. In: Science. 125, 1957, pp. 383-385.
• The temperature decrease of surface water in high latitudes and of abyssal-hadal water in open oceanic basins during the past 75 million years. In: Deep-Sea Research. 8, 1961, pp. 144-147.
• Precipitous continental clopes and considerations on the transitional crust. In: Science. 147, 1965, pp. 145-148.
• Isotopic paleotemperatures. In: Science. 154, 1966, pp. 851-857.
• Paleotemperature analysis of Caribbean cores P6304-8 and P6304-9 and a generalized temperature curve for the past 425,000 years. In: Journal of Geology. 74, 1966, pp. 109-124.
• The Pleistocene epoch and the evolution of man. In: Current Anthropology . 9, 1968, pp. 27-47.
• Interglacials, high sea levels and the control of Greenland ice by the precession of the equinoxes. In: Science. 166, 1969, pp. 1503-1504.
• A new paleontology. In: Micropaleontology. 15, 1969, pp. 265-300.
• Pleistocene paleotemperatures. In: Science. 168, 1970, pp. 822-825.
• The amplitude of Pleistocene climatic cycles at low latitudes and the isotopic composition of glacial ice. In: KK Turekian (ed.): Late Cenozoic Glacial Ages. Yale University Press, New Haven, CO 1971, pp. 183-197.
• Depth habitats and growth stages of pelagic formanifera. In: Science. 173, 1971, pp. 1122-1124.
• Paleotemperature variations across the Plio-Pleistocene boundary at the type section. In: Science. 171, 1971, pp. 600-602.
• The cause of the ice ages. In: Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 37, 1978, pp. 347-354.
• A new global geology. In: C. Emiliani (Ed.): The Oceanic Lithosphere. The Sea. 8th edition. Vol. 7, Wiley Interscience, New York 1981, pp. 1687-738.
• Extinctive evolution. In: Journal of Theoretical Biology. 97, 1982, pp. 13-33.
• Dictionary of Physical Sciences. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987.
• The Scientific Companion. Wiley, New York 1988.
• The new geology or the old role of the geological sciences in science education. In: Journal of Geological Education. 37, 1989, pp. 327-331.
• Avogadro number and mole: a royal confusion. In: Journal of Geological Education. 39, 1991, pp. 31-33.
• Planktic et al. In: Marine Micropaleontology. 18, 1991, p. 3.
• Planktic / planktonic, nektic / nektonic, benthic / benthonic. In: Journal of Paleontology. 65, 1991, p. 329.
• C. Emiliani, DB Ericson: The glacial / interglacial temperature range of the surface water of the ocean at low latitudes. In: HP Taylor, JR O'Neil, IR Kaplan (Eds.): Special Publication: Stable Isotope Geochemistry: A Tribute to Samuel Epstein. Geochemical Society, University Park, Pennsylvania 1991, pp. 223-228.
• The Moon as a piece of Mercury. In: Geologische Rundschau. 81, 1992, pp. 791-794.
• Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology, and the Evolution of Life and Environment. Cambridge University Press, New York 1992.
• Pleistocene paleotemperatures. In: Science. 257, 1992, pp. 1188-1189.
• Milankovitch theory verified; discussion. In: Nature. 364, 1993, p. 583.
• Calendar reform. In: Nature. 366, 1993, p. 716.
• Extinction and viruses. In: BioSystems. 31, 1993, pp. 155-159.
• Paleoecological implications of Alaskan terrestrial vertebrate fauna in latest Cretaceous time at high paleolatitudes: Comment. In: Geology. 21, 1993, pp. 1151-1152.
• Viral extinctions in deep-sea species. In: Nature. 366, 1993, pp. 217-218.
• Redefinition of atomic mass unit, Avogadro constant, and mole. In: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 59, 1995, pp. 1205-1206.
• Tropical paleotemperatures: discussion. In: Science. 268, 1995, p. 1264.
• C. Emiliani, G. Edwards: Tertiary ocean bottom temperatures. In: Nature. 171, 1953, pp. 887-888.
• C. Emiliani, I. Elliott: Vatican confusion. In: Nature. 375, 1995, p. 530.
• C. Emiliani, S. Epstein: Temperature variations in the lower Pleistocene of Southern California. In: Journal of Geology. 61, 1953, pp. 171-181.
• C. Emiliani, S. Gartner, B. Lidz: Neogene sedimentation on the Blake Plateau and the emergence of the Central American Isthmus. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 11, 1972, pp. 1-10.
• C. Emiliani, S. Gartner, B. Lidz, K. Eldridge, DK Elvey, PC Huang, JJ Stipp, M. Swanson: Paleoclimatological analysis of late Quaternary cores from the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. In: Science. 189, 1975, pp. 1083-1088.
• C. Emiliani, J. Geiss: On glaciations and their causes. In: Geologische Rundschau. 46, 1959, pp. 576-601.
• C. Emiliani, CG Harrison, M. Swanson: Underground nuclear explosions and the control of earthquakes. In: Science. 165, 1969, pp. 1255-1256.
• C. Emiliani, EB Kraus, EM Shoemaker: Sudden death at the end of the Mesozoic. In: Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 55, 1981, pp. 327-334.
• C. Emiliani, T. Mayeda, R. Selli: Paleotemperature analysis of the Plio-Pleistocene section at le Castella, Calabria, southern Italy. In: Geological Society of America Bulletin. 72, 1961, pp. 679-688.
• C. Emiliani, JD Milliman: Deep-sea sediments and their geological record. In: Earth Science Reviews. 1, 1966, pp. 105-132.
• C. Emiliani, DA Price, J. Seipp: Is the Postglacial artificial? In: HP Taylor, JR O'Neil, IR Kaplan (Eds.): Special Publication: Stable Isotope Geochemistry: A Tribute to Samuel Epstein. Geochemical Society, University Park, Pennsylvania 1991, pp. 229-231.
• C. Emiliani, NJ Shackleton: The Brunhes Epoch: paleotemperature and geochronology. In: Science. 183, 1974, pp. 511-514.

See also

• paleoclimatology
• Holocene Calendar

swell

• Biography of Cesare Emiliani, Emiliani's website by Toby Tyrrell
• Biography of Cesare Emiliani, Department of Geological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Miami, USA

Web links

Richard Zeebe gives the Emiliani Lecture at the AGU Fall Meeting 2012 of the American Geophysical Union , which is given regularly in honor of Cesare Emiliani - Richard Zeebe: No Future Without a Past, "or" History will Teach us Nothing - Online on Youtube