Eberhard Fraas

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Eberhard Fraas

Eberhard Fraas (born June 26, 1862 in Stuttgart , † March 6, 1915 there ) was a German geologist and paleontologist . He worked as a curator at the Stuttgart Natural History Collection and was the first scientist to recover and work on the East African Mesozoic dinosaur fauna in today's Tanzania .

Life

Eberhard Fraas was born in Stuttgart on June 26, 1862, the son of Oscar Fraas (1824-1897), conservator and professor at the geological-paleontological department of the Royal Natural History Cabinet. After high school he studied at the universities in Leipzig with Hermann Credner and Ferdinand Zirkel and in Munich with Karl Alfred von Zittel , August Rothpletz (1853-1918) and Paul Groth . Here he received his doctorate in 1886 with a treatise on starfish of the white Jura . On the basis of his geological recordings in the southern Karwendel Mountains and on the Wendelstein , he published several papers and summarized his experiences about the construction of the mountains in a book about the "scenery of the Alps".

In July 1888 he completed his habilitation at the University of Munich, in 1891 he became an assistant at the Stuttgart Natural History Collection and in 1894 curator of its geological, paleontological and mineralogical departments. He promoted the geological and palaeontological exploration of his Swabian homeland through photographs of several sheets of the special geognostic map of Württemberg, through studies of the Triassic , Jurassic and Tertiary of Swabia and through cave research . Mention should be made of the excavation in the Irpfelhöhle in Giengen an der Brenz in 1893 shortly after its discovery.

His investigations into the structure and formation of the Nördlinger Ries and the Steinheimer Basin , which he published together with Wilhelm Branco (later Wilhelm von Branca ), attracted particular attention . In 1898 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1912 he became a member of the Paleontological Society .

Several trips to Spain , Sardinia , Italy , the Balkans , western North America (1901), Egypt and Syria (1897) and (1906) and finally to German East Africa (1907) expanded his field of vision and filled the museum with new finds .

When a mine engineer discovered Jurassic dinosaurs in East Africa , Fraas was the first scientist to visit the site. The finds he brought with him and his publications about them prompted the successful Tendaguru expeditions sent there by the Berlin Museum of Natural History soon after . A number of Fraas' monographs deal with the labyrinthodontia , ichthyosaurs , sea ​​crocodiles and plesiosaurs . His pedagogical talent prompted him to work on the paleontological exercise book "The Petrefacts Collector", which was widely used.

Fraas was also the curator of the private mineral collection of Friedrich Alfred Krupp and taught him and his personal assistant Justizrat Korn in natural sciences from 1898 until his death in 1902 . Among others, Fraas encouraged Krupp in his scientific engagement in marine zoology. Under the chairmanship of Ernst Haeckel and together with Johannes Conrad, he was also a member of the prize committee for the competition published by Krupp on January 1, 1900 on the question "What do we learn from the principles of the theory of descent in relation to the domestic political development and legislation of states?" on. This competition, endowed with a sensational 30,000 marks , made social Darwinism socially acceptable in the German Reich and made it attractive for politics.

From 1914 to 1915 he was chairman of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . The essay "Triasformation" in the concise dictionary of natural sciences founded by Gustav Fischer comes from him . Fraas was at the height of his work when he died on March 6, 1915 from the aftermath of a dysentery that had spread in East Africa .

Fonts

  • The asteria of the White Jura of Swabia and Franconia: With studies on the structure of the echinoderms and the calcareous framework of the asteria. In: Palaeontographica. 32, 1886, pp. 229-261.
  • The labyrinthodonts of the Swabian Triassic. In: Palaeontographica. 36, 1889, pp. 1-158.
  • Scenery of the Alps. Weigel, Leipzig 1892.
  • The Swabian Triassic Saurians: after the material of the Kgl. Collection of natural objects compiled in Stuttgart; with pictures of the most beautiful show pieces; Ceremony of the Royal Natural History Cabinet in Stuttgart for the 42nd meeting of the German Geological Society in Stuttgart, August 1896. E. Schweizerbart (Koch), Stuttgart 1896, urn : nbn: de: bsz: 21-dt-46495
  • The Triassic Period in Swabia; A look into prehistory using R. Blezinger's geological pyramid. O. Maier, Ravensburg 1900.
  • The sea crocodilians (Thalattosuchia) of the Upper Jurassic with special consideration of Dacosaurus and Geosaurus. In: Palaeontographica. 49 (1), 1902, pp. 1-71.
  • Guide to the Royal Cabinet of Natural Products in Stuttgart. Part 1: The geognostic collection of Württemberg in the ground floor room, at the same time a guide for the geological conditions and the prehistoric inhabitants of our country. E. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1903.
  • New zeuglodons from the lower Middle Eocene from the Mokattam near Cairo. In: Geological and Palaeontological Treatises. NF 6 (3), 1904, pp. 1-24.
  • The petrefact collector: a guide to collecting and identifying the fossils of Germany. KG Lutz, Stuttgart 1910. (digitized version)
  • with W. Branca: The volcanic Ries near Nördlingen in its importance for questions of general geology. In: Treatises of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. 1901, pp. 1-169.
  • with W. Branca: The cryptovolcanic basin of Steinheim. In: Treatises of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. 1905, pp. 1-64.
  • Proteroehersis, a pleurodire turtle from the Keuper. In: Annual books of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg. 69, pp. 13–90, urn : nbn: de: hebis: 30-1139852 .

literature

  • Werner Quenstedt :  Fraas, Eberhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 307 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Peter Goessler: Eberhard Fraas as researcher of prehistory and anthropologist. Gest. March 6, 1915. In: Find reports from Schwaben, Vol. 22–24, 1914–16.
  • Ernst Stromer : Eberhard Fraas. In: Centralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie. 15, 12, 1915, pp. 353-359. (Archives)
  • J. Walther: Eberhard Fraas. In: Negotiations of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors. 87, 1922, pp. 334-336.
  • G. Maier: African Dinosaurs Unearthed: The Tendaguru Expeditions . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paleontological Journal. 1, issue 1, March 1914.
  2. ^ Paul Weindling : Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism: 1870-1945. (= Cambridge history of medicine ). Cambridge Univ. Pr., Cambridge 1989, ISBN 0-521-36381-0 , p. 114.
  3. ^ Kurt Bayertz : Social Darwinism in Germany 1860-1900. In: Eve-Marie Engels (ed.): Charles Darwin and its effect . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-29503-8 , p. 200.
  4. ↑ Uwe Puschner : Social Darwinism as a scientific concept and political program. In: Gangolf Hübinger : European scientific cultures and political orders in modernity (1890-1970). Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-71859-1 , pp. 111-113.
  5. ↑ Eberhard Fraas: Triassic formation. In: E. Korschelt et al. (Ed.): Concise dictionary of natural sciences. 1st edition. Volume 10 : Transplantation - Hermaphrodite. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1915, pp. 45–56 (online)


personal data
SURNAME Fraas, Eberhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1915
Place of death Stuttgart