François Kraut
François Kraut (born February 8, 1907 in Pinkafeld , Hungary, † August 28, 1983 in Paris ) was an Austro-French geologist and mineralogist. He was a university professor in Paris. Among other things, his research on meteorites gained international recognition .
Scientific career
Kraut studied between 1923 and 1928 in Újpest and Budapest and at the Montan University in Leoben . He later went to Paris with his family and continued his studies in mathematics, physics and mineralogy there. In 1933 he became an employee of the mineralogy department of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, whose director he became in 1963 and which he headed until his resignation in 1972. With the support of his colleagues and mentors Alfred Lacroix , Jean Orcel (1896–1978) and Elisabeth Jérémine, he specialized in mineralogy and petrography , in particular in the microscopy of rocks and opaque minerals.
After receiving French citizenship, he joined the army in 1939, but was soon taken prisoner by the Germans, which lasted until 1945.
He worked with Simone Caillere for several years. With it he described the laws of paragenesis of iron in the deposits in Lorraine , Anjou and Normandy , laws that were later confirmed by experiments in the laboratory.
1969 his scientific career was crowned by the discovery of the largest known meteorite impact on French soil metropolitan France , the Astro style emblem of Rochechouart-Chassenon between the river Charente and the Haute-Vienne department . It is a crater with a diameter of 22 kilometers and an age of around 214 million years. This discovery was the result of 30 years of methodical work and constant testing of hypotheses that he thought had not yet been proven.
The meteorites
After he had devoted himself to researching the geology of metals, especially copper , iron , magnesium and arsenic for a long time , he devoted himself to researching meteorites in the last few years of his scientific work . In 1967 he crossed the Charente on the trail of a meteorite that fell on the earth on June 27th and of which he discovered two fragments.
In the same year he put forward the thesis that the breccias that had been discovered in Chassenon in the Charente department were either of volcanic origin or the result of a meteorite impact. In this case he drew parallels to similar rock finds in the Nördlinger Ries . In July 1968 he undertook research aimed at supporting one or the other of these two theses.
Rochechouart-Chassenon Astroblem
In 1969 he succeeded in solving the riddle of the Rochechouart-Chassenon astro problem by discovering the cone of rays . He was supported by the two American geologists French and Short. Bevan M. French, born in New Jersey (USA) in 1937, was a geologist, mineralogist, writer and expert on meteorite impacts on the earth and their effects on the rock formations below the surface. French had long been concerned with the geological peculiarities of this area and had published since 1935 on the previously unexplained breccias of Chassenon. The Rochechouart-Chassenon Astroblem is the largest meteorite crater ever discovered in France and one of the largest ever discovered at that time. Even today it is listed among the top 50 meteorite craters on earth.
Krautit
The mineral krautite , a mineral from the Arsene group , was named after François Kraut at the suggestion of François Permingeate . This mineral with the chemical composition Mn 2+ (AsO 3 OH) .H 2 O was discovered in 1975 by François Fontan.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 36-48, Meteoritics, vol. 5, p 94
- ↑ Kraut F., Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences, Paris, tome 201, Juillet-Décembre 1935, pp 221-223
- ↑ http://rruff.geo.arizona.edu/doclib/hom/krautite.pdf
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kraut, François |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austro-French geologist and mineralogist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 8, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pinkafeld , Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 28, 1983 |
| Place of death | Paris |