Dietrich Welte

Dietrich Hugo Welte (born January 22, 1935 in Würzburg ) is a German geochemist and petroleum geologist who researches the formation of petroleum and natural gas.

Live and act

Welte studied geology, chemistry and geochemistry at the University of Würzburg and the University of Göttingen . He received his doctorate in 1959 in Würzburg with the thesis sedimentological investigation of uranium-containing Keuper sediments from the area around Lichtenfels near Coburg . He then spent three years at Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands, before he went to Wurzburg again, where he joined with George Knetsch 1966 in geology and geochemistry of the exogenous cycle habilitated . From 1967 to 1970 he was in oil exploration at Chevron Corporationin California. From there he was appointed to a professorship for geochemistry at the University of Göttingen. In 1972 he received the chair for petroleum and coalology at the RWTH Aachen . He was the founder of the Institute for Petroleum and Organic Geochemistry at the Research Center Jülich , of which he was director from 1979. In Jülich he also founded the Society for Integrated Exploration Systems.

He deals with geochemical methods for petroleum exploration and the numerical simulation of the development of petroleum deposits in sedimentary basins.

Awards

1966 President's Award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
1979 Clarence Karcher Medal from the University of Oklahoma
1983 Alfred Treibs Award from the Geochemical Society, USA
1986 Carl Engler Medal of the German Society for Mineral Oil Industry and Coal Chemistry
1989 Gustav Steinmann Medal from the Geological Association
1995 Honorary doctorate from the Ruhr University Bochum
2013 Sidney Powers Award

He has been a full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1978 . From 1987 to 1997 he was on the scientific advisory board of the DGMK German Scientific Society for Oil, Natural Gas and Coal and from 1982 to 1984 on its board. From 1972 to 1997 he was on the German Committee for the World Petroleum Congresses and from 1987 to 1997 on the scientific committee of the World Petroleum Council (WPC). Dietrich Welte is a member of the Acatech - Academy of Engineering Sciences. In 1990 he was accepted as a full member of the Academia Europaea .

Fonts (selection)

On the history of the development of petroleum based on geochemical-geological investigations . Wuerzburg, 1966
with Bernard P. Tissot Petroleum formation and occurences. 2nd Edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York / Tokyo, 1984, ISBN 3-540-13281-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Walter A. Schnitzer , Herbert Vossmerbäumer : To the history of geology-palaeontology. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 665–682; here: p. 673.
^ Powers Award

personal data
SURNAME	Welte, Dietrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Welte, Dietrich Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German geochemist
DATE OF BIRTH	January 22, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wurzburg

[1] Walter A. Schnitzer , Herbert Vossmerbäumer : To the history of geology-palaeontology. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 665–682; here: p. 673.

[2] Powers Award