Conrad Schlumberger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conrad Schlumberger (born October 2, 1878 in Gebweiler , Alsace, † May 9, 1936 in Stockholm ) was a French geophysicist and geologist. The Schlumberger process was named after him.

ancestry

Conrad Schlumberger comes from a successful family dynasty from Alsace (then the realm of Alsace-Lorraine ), whose roots go back to the Swabian region of Ulm in the 16th century . The family was Protestant and had pro-French sympathies.

The father, Paul Schlumberger, is the descendant of a family that became famous during the industrialization , among other things , through Nicolas Schlumberger, who founded a spinning mill specializing in the production of fine spun cotton threads in 1812.

The mother, Marguerite Schlumberger, nee de Witt, was the daughter of Conrad de Witt , MP from the Calvados , and granddaughter of the politician François Guizot , member of the Académie française , minister under Louis-Philippe . Philanthropist and feminist, she was very involved in associations that support prostitutes from their situation. As a suffragist , she presided over the International League for Women's Rights ( ligue internationale des droits de la femme ). A museum is dedicated to the couple in their mother's castle in Crèvecœur-en-Auge. Her current descendants The Seydoux dynasty are direct descendants of the mother.

From the marriage, which was concluded in 1876, there were six siblings:

  • 1877 Paul Conrad Nicolas " Jean " Schlumberger , publisher and founder of the Nouvelle Revue française .
  • 1878 François Conrad , engineer
  • 1879 Léon Théodore " Daniel ", engineer and manager of the Val-Richer family winery, died in 1915; married Fanny de Turckheim (1880–1965)
  • 1883 Henriette Alsa " Pauline ", married Albert Doll, qualified architect of the école nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris
  • 1884 Henri Émile " Marcel " Schlumberger , École centrale de Paris , then engineer with the French railways SNCF . Co-inventor of one of the first tanks. Grandfather of the Seydoux Dynasty.
  • 1886 Charles Philippe " Maurice " Schlumberger , founder of the bank of the same name, today Neuflize OBC

Life

Conrad spent his youth in Guebwiller. Since the family had chosen French citizenship, he attended the traditional Lycée Condorcet from 1893 . After graduating from high school, he completed two-year preparatory classes at the Lycée Saint-Louis college to study at two French Grandes Ecoles , the prestigious École polytechnique in Paris (he was second best of the year) and the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines, and in 1904 he became a state mining engineer.

He started work as a mining engineer in Rodez and was transferred to Toulouse in 1905 . In 1906 he was appointed professor of physics at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne and held this position until 1914. From 1907 he received the same position at the École Supérieure des Mines in Paris . In 1912 Conrad discovered the connection between electrical potential and the occurrence of minerals. First, he verified his discovery in the laboratory of the Ecole des Mines using a bathtub in which he simulated layers of the earth and went to work to deepen his knowledge. The procedure was later named after him. As part of his activities, he went on study trips around the world. In 1914, he mapped pyrite bodies near Bor in Serbia with the help of self-potential measurement on the earth's surface.

The First World War , during which he served as an artillery officer, interrupted this career, even though he received the honor of Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1916 . Immediately after the war, in 1918, he was commissioned to redesign the mining industry in Alsace-Lorraine and Saarland as chief engineer, then a year later he returned to the École Supérieure des Mines as a professor of physics , where he dealt with applied geophysics . Now he wrote his thesis about his work and his methodology 6 years late.

With financial support from his father, he and his brother Marcel Schlumberger were able to work scientifically on the implementation of the method from 1919 and developed a mobile measuring device for borehole probing ( wireline logging method). You set up a studio and business premises at Crèvecœur-en-Auge, where the Schlumberger Foundation is based today. Together with Marcel he carried out experimental work around the world. In 1923 Conrad Schlumberger left the teaching profession in order to devote himself entirely to the promising applied geophysics.

In 1926 he and Marcel founded an engineering company, the Société de Prospection Électrique , 42, rue Saint-Dominique in Paris, which is now the world's largest oil and gas exploration company under the name Schlumberger Limited . On September 5, 1927, the brothers carried out the world's first borehole survey based on electrical resistance in Alsace on derrick 7 southeast of Dieffenbach-lès-Wœrth near Merkwiller-Pechelbronn . The first clients in 1930 were the USA and the USSR.

The CGG ( Compagnie générale de géophysique ) was founded in 1931 and the Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation in Houston, USA, in 1934 .

In 1936 he died prematurely in Stockholm on his return from a business trip to Russia. Marcel took over the management of the company.

In 1904 he married Louise Delpech, from Clairac (Lot-et-Garonne). He is the father of

  • Anne (1905–1993), founder of the Clamart Children's Library ( Bibliothèque pour enfants de Clamart ); married the French-US scientist Henri George Doll (1902–1991)
  • Dominique (1908–1998), philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel in Houston; married the French nobleman Jean (John) de Ménil (1904–1973) entrepreneur, philanthropist and art collector.
  • Sylvie (1912–1999), founder of the Flaine winter ski area , together with her husband, Éric Boissonnas (1913–2005), geophysicist.

Honors

  • Tour de forage . The memorial was erected in Dieffenbach-lès-Wœrth in 2005 and has the shape of a derrick. It is reminiscent of the borehole survey of 1927 and is dedicated to the two brothers.
  • The Conrad Schlumberger Award , a science award from the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Schlumberger family. In: Virtual Museum of Protestantism. Fondation pasteur Eugène Bersier, accessed on January 21, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Une famille ... un musée. In: Château de Crèvecoeur. Fondation Musée Schlumberger, accessed on January 21, 2018 (French, English).
personal data
SURNAME Schlumberger, Conrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French geophysicist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Gebweiler , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1936
Place of death Stockholm