Ferdinand von Hochstetter

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Ferdinand Hochstetter, heliogravure by Viktor Angerer, before 1884
Ferdinand Hochstetter, lithograph by Adolf Dauthage , 1857
Tomb of Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter in the Vienna Central Cemetery
Geological map of the Auckland area and the volcanoes of Auckland Volcanic Field from the first systematic geological mapping of the country by Hochstetter

Christian Gottlob Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter (born April 30, 1829 in Esslingen am Neckar , † July 18, 1884 in Vienna ) was a German-Austrian geologist , naturalist and explorer .

Early life and education

Ferdinand von Hochstetter was born on April 30, 1829 as the son of Esslingen parish priest Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Hochstetter (1787–1860) and his fourth wife Sofie Friederike Orth (1795–1861) in Esslingen in Württemberg . After passing the exam at the Esslingen Lyceum , he moved to the monastery school in Maulbronn and studied theology and natural sciences at the University of Tübingen in 1847 . During his studies he became a member of the Roigel Royal Society of Tübingen . In 1851 he completed his theological studies and graduated in 1852 as a doctor of philosophy with a dissertation in mineralogy.

Move to Vienna

In 1853, Hochstetter went to Vienna , where he geologically examined the Bohemian Forest , the Karlovy Vary Mountains , the Ore Mountains and western parts of the "Basaltic Central Mountains of Bohemia" ( Bohemian Central Mountains ) for the Austrian Geological Institute . In 1856 he became a private lecturer at the University of Vienna .

Novara expedition and New Zealand

In 1857, Hochstetter took part in the circumnavigation of the world by the Austrian frigate Novara on behalf of the Imperial Academy of Sciences , which went down in history as the Novara expedition . The journey went from Trieste via Rio de Janeiro , Cape Town , Madras , Sumatra , Hong Kong , Shanghai , Sydney and for Hochstetter to Auckland , which he reached on December 22, 1858 with the Novara. There, Hochstetter was exempted from the remainder of the trip at the request of the Auckland Provincial Government for geological surveys in New Zealand . During the first two months he explored the Auckland Volcanic Field with Julius von Haast , with whom he became friends, and Charles Heaphy . Hochstetter mapped the volcanic field in which he identified 61 volcanoes, and created the first work on the geology of New Zealand with his geological records of the area .

On March 5, 1859, Hochstetter started his expedition to the interior of the north island of the country to geologically explore the area around the extinct Taupo volcano (volcano) and the Taupo Volcanic Zone . His journey then went through the Taranaki region and Wellington in June 1859 to the South Island in the Nelson region . He examined the coal deposits, gold fields and copper ore deposits in the region. During his field investigations at Dun Mountain near Nelson, he discovered a rock type that was not yet classified at the time and named it dunite after its type locality , which he described scientifically for the first time in 1864.

On October 2, 1859, Hochstetter began his return journey to Europe via Sydney.

Working in Austria

Back in Austria, he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy at the Vienna Technical University in 1860 , and from 1874 to 1875 he was rector of the university.

From 1876 he was head of Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed as Director of the Natural History Court Museum . Hochstetter was one of the first to publicly support Darwinism as early as 1860. In 1872 he was appointed teacher to Crown Prince Rudolf by the imperial family . He repeatedly undertook extensive journeys in the interests of science. He toured Switzerland and Italy in 1863 , European Turkey in 1869 , Russia and the Urals in 1872 . The first geological overview map of the Balkan region, which at that time still belonged to the Turkish Empire, comes from him . In 1868, Hochstetter in Vienna published the first attempt to explain the tidal waves in the seas caused by earthquakes.

In 1862, Hochstetter was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Since 1869 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1875 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Ferdinand von Hochstetter died on July 18, 1884 in Oberdöbling near Vienna (in today's 19th district of Vienna ) and was buried in a grave of honor in Vienna's central cemetery (group 14 A, number 41).

First scientific description of a tsunami event

Under the impressions of his participation in the Novara expedition, during which he also dealt with phenomena of volcanism , Hochstetter followed the effects of the earthquake that occurred on August 13, 1868 off the then Peruvian coast ( epicenter is today off Chile ) from Vienna. .

Flood waves ( tsunamis ) reached both the east coasts of New Zealand and Australia on August 15th . Hochstetter recognized the connection between the earthquake as the cause and later tidal waves arriving far away on various coasts of the Pacific Ocean as the consequences. He realized this long before the time when geophysicists could scientifically describe the functioning of tsunami events. He obtained it solely from information that he received from Australia, Honolulu ( Hawaii ), New Zealand and Peru by post, i.e. by ship. Hochstetter received the information about earthquakes and tidal waves by letter through contacts he had made during his research and work stay in the South Sea.

Hochstetter is one of the first scientists to understand such tidal waves in the oceans as a result of tectonic events, and published about it in 1868. From the distance between South America and New Zealand, the mean sea depth and the delayed arrival of the wave on the Australian coast, he initiated a Propagation speed of 368 nautical miles per hour. Hochstetter left a hand sketch showing the course of a tsunami. A few years ago this document was found in the historical archive holdings of the Federal Geological Institute of Vienna on a tip from the scientist Eleonore Hoke from the Victoria University of Wellington . The tsunami event he described, with an earthquake magnitude of 9.0, caused devastating damage to the coast of South America and the Pacific, which also claimed thousands of lives .

family

  • On April 2, 1861, Hochstetter married Georgiana Elisa Bengough in Vienna , daughter of the Englishman John Egbert Bengough , who was director of the Vienna gas works. Together they had four sons, including the future geologist Egbert Wilhelm von Hochstetter , and four daughters.

Appreciations and honors

Several geographical locations and types of living beings are named after the researcher:

Donation from the estate

Time and again, the archive at the Natural History Museum received donations of parts of the estate (diaries, notebooks, letters, busts, etc.) from the family property of Ferdinand von Hochstetter's numerous descendants. Years later, on April 30, 2016, a donation agreement was signed at the Natural History Museum Vienna : Inge von Hochstetter, the great-granddaughter of the researcher who lives in Basel, and other descendants presented the museum with another fragmentary legacy, the so-called "Hochstetter Collection Basel",. Christian Köberl , head of the house at the time, was quoted as follows:

The NHM Vienna receives Hochstetter's diaries, letters and manuscripts as well as pictures, plans, drawings and photos from his private possession. Travel diaries and notes from his travels - especially from the Novara trip - provide new insights into the life of the researcher and museum director.

Works

  • Carlsbad, its geognostic conditions and its sources . Franieck brothers, Karlsbad 1856.
  • About the location of the Karlovy Vary thermal baths in two parallel springs on two parallel mountain crevices . Vienna 1856.
  • New Zealand . Gotta'scher Verlag, Stuttgart 1863.
  • together with August Petermann: Geological-topographical atlas of New Zealand in 6 sheets . Justus Perthes, Gotha 1863.
  • Geology of New Zealand. Contributions to the geology of the provinces of Auckland and Nelson. Vienna 1864.
  • About the earthquake in Peru on August 13, 1868: and the resulting tidal waves in the Pacific Ocean, especially on the coasts of Chili and New Zealand . In: Meeting reports, Kaiserl. Academy of Sciences in Vienna, mathematical and natural science class . tape 52 and 58. KK Hof und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1868.
  • Journey through Rumelia in the summer of 1869 . In: Communications from the Imperial and Royal. Geographical Society in Vienna . Vienna 1871.
  • Over the Urals . Berlin 1873.
  • Geological images of the past and the present world - for object lessons and instruction in schools and families . Schreiber, Esslingen 1873.
  • Asia: its future paths and coal treasures . Vienna 1876.
  • Collected travel reports from the frigate “Novara” circumnavigated the world from 1857–1859 . Eduard Hölzel, Vienna 1885.
  • Ferdinand von Hochstetter: Letters from the Bohemian Forest 1852–1855 , edited by Sascha Nolden, Edition Thanhäuser , Ottensheim 2017.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand von Hochstetter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b C. A. Fleming : Hochstetter, Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand von . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , October 30, 2012, accessed April 30, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Hochstetter: New Zealand . 1863, p. 15 .
  3. ↑ Hochstetter: New Zealand . 1863, p. 16 .
  4. ^ Hochstetter: Collected travel reports from the frigate "Novara" circumnavigated the world from 1857-1859 . 1885, p. 334 .
  5. ^ Hochstetter and Haast's geological map of Nelson . In: Auckland Libraries' heritage collections . Auckland Council , accessed April 30, 2016 .
  6. ^ Hochstetter: Geology of New Zealand . 1884, p. 218 .
  7. ^ Hochstetter: Collected travel reports from the frigate "Novara" circumnavigated the world from 1857-1859 . 1885, p. 337 .
  8. ^ Ferdinand Hochstetter in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  9. ↑ Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel: Natural History Museum Vienna - A guide through the display collections . Ed .: Natural History Museum Vienna. Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902421-47-0 , p. 16 .
  10. ^ Member entry by Ferdinand Christian von Hochstetter at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 6, 2016.
  11. ↑ Member entry of Ferdinand von Hochstetter (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 6, 2016.
  12. ^ Member History: Ferdinand von Hochstetter. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 2, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 115.
  14. ↑ Hans Peter Schönlaub: The Sumatra-Andaman catastrophe of December 26, 2004 and other quakes. ( Memento from August 1st, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) - Ferdinand von Hochstetter: Austria's pioneer in tsunami research . at www.geologie.ac.at (with a picture of the map sketch by Hochstetter)
  15. ^ Willem de Lange, Eileen McSaveney: New Zealand's tsunami history In: Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Online version 2009, at www.teara.govt.nz
  16. ↑ Charles Alexander Fleming: Hochstetter, Dr Ferdinand Ritter Von. In: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Alexander Hare McLintock , November 9, 2011, accessed April 30, 2016 .
  17. ^ Honorary members of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg
  18. ↑ By Hochstetter Seamount in the Marine Gazetteer (English)
  19. ^ Dispatch from the museum on April 21, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Hochstetter, Ferdinand von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hochstetter, Christian Gottlob Ferdinand von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian geologist, natural scientist and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Esslingen am Neckar
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1884
Place of death Vienna