Franz Loewinson-Lessing

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franz Loewinson-Lessing
Title page of the Petrographic Lexicon, which has been translated into several languages

Franz Loewinson-Lessing , Russian Fyodor Juljewitsch Loewinson-Lessing , Russian Франц Юльевич Левинсон-Лессинг , occasionally English Franz Levinson-Lessing (born February 25 . Jul / 9. March  1861 greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 25. October 1939 in Leningrad ) was a Russian geologist and petrologist . Through several publications he emerged as an excellent expert on Russian farm stones.

Scientific work

Education and early years

Loewinson-Lessing studied at the University of St. Petersburg and completed this training in 1883. In May 1898 he defended his dissertation at the St. Petersburg University on the subject of "Research on theoretical petrography in connection with the study of igneous rocks from the central Caucasus". Since 1889 he worked as a private lecturer and in 1892 received a professorship at the Jurjew University of Dorpat . A year later he took over the position of dean of the physics and mathematics faculty, which he carried out until 1899.

Since 1890 he has carried out geological surveys along the projected Tbilisi - Vladikavkaz railway line . In the period from 1892 to 1902 he carried out research work for the University of Dorpat . In addition to his activities as a field geologist and his duties at the University of Dorpat, Loewinson-Lessing developed a petrographic lexicon, which is considered an early work in this sector. It appeared as a supplement to the meeting reports of the Natural Scientists Society in the years 1893–95 and was later published in various languages. The second edition in Russian took place in 1937 in joint editing with EA Struve.

In 1899 Loewinson-Lessing investigated the Kasbek massif in the Caucasus , and in 1901 geological explorations were carried out in Ossetia , Digorien and Balkaria . In the same year the report on this work was published in Russian and German (abridged version). Further geological explorations took him to the northern, central and southern Urals , the Mugodschar Mountains , the Kyrgyz steppe , the Crimea and Transcaucasia . Geological explorations were also carried out in the Olonetsk , Nizhegorod and Poltaw governorates.

Activity in Saint Petersburg

At the instigation of the Russian Ministry of Finance, Loewinson-Lessing was appointed full professor at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic on May 17, 1902. Here he taught from 1902 to 1930 as a professor and held a chair in geology. In this capacity he held lectures on geology and mineralogy , also in higher women's courses, as well as in natural science courses at the Pedagogical Academy, the 2nd Pedagogical Institute and the Forest Institute.
At the Polytechnic Institute he founded the first laboratory for experimental petrography in Russia. From 1907 to 1910 he was dean of the metallurgical department.

In 1914 Loewinson-Lessing was appointed a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences .

October Revolution and Civil War

During the extremely difficult period of the Russian Civil War , Loewinson-Lessing was the rector of the Polytechnic Institute in Petrograd (March 20, 1919 to November 5, 1919). During his term of office he had to defend the viability of his institute against an internal revolutionary group. During this time he was a leading member of the Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces (Комиссии по изучению естественных производительных сил, in 1930 the Council for the Study of Productive Forces) tried to secure and take over important institutes and other research institutions.

When Loewinson-Lessing returned from a business trip to the institute on October 1, 1919, he was arrested by members of the Cheka . The following day, seven leading professors at his institution, including three former rectors, signed a memorandum on his release, which was approved.

After 1920, work was carried out in the field of building stones and for the project to build a building stone museum. In this museum project, Loewinson-Lessing brought together numerous important Soviet geologists. He is considered one of the most important Russian and later Soviet experts in the field of building and decorative stone.

Working in the Soviet Union

His widely recognized work led to his appointment as a full member of the Academy of Sciences in 1925.

Between 1927 and 1929 Loewinson-Lessing headed the Institute for Soil Science - WW Dokuchayev, founded on April 2, 1927 . It belonged to the Soviet Academy of Sciences since 1927 . As a successor, he took over the duties of founding director KD Glinka.

From 1930 until shortly before his death Loewinson-Lessing worked at the Petrographic Institute of the Academy of Sciences. During this time he headed the academy's branch offices in Armenia and Azerbaijan . Furthermore, on his initiative, a volcanological station was set up on Kamchatka and he chaired the Commission for the Complex Study of the Caspian Sea .

Memberships and awards

Location of the Loewinson-Lessing Island in the Kara Sea

Publications (selection)

  • The Variolite of Jalguba in Gouv. Olonez . ("TMPM", 1884, VI)
  • The Olonez diabase formation . (Olonezkaja diabasowaja formazija). St. Petersburg, Trudy S.-Peterb. Obshch. Estestvoisp., Vol. XIX, Otd. Geol. I Mineral., 1888
  • The ammonées de la zone à Sporadoceras münsteri dans les Monts Gouberlinskya Gory (gouv. D'Orenbourg), Oural méridional. Extract Mém. Soc. Belge Géol. Paléont. & Hydro. VI, 1892
  • Petrographic Lexicon. Repertory of petrographic terms and names . Jurjew [Dorpat] 1893–1895 (digitized on the download portal of the University of Tartu)
  • Tables for the Determination of the Rock Forming Minerals . 1893
  • Catalog de la Collection de Météorites de l'Université Impériale de Jourieff (Dorpat). Supplement in: Ученые записки Императорского Юрьевского университета [Utschenije sapiski Imperatorskogo Jurjewskogo uniwersiteta] - Acta et Commentationes Pat. Universitatis Jurievensis . Jhrg. 5, No. 2, 1897, 18 pp.
  • A word about the corrélation of transgressions and restoration maps . In: Comte-rendue VII Congrès Géol. Intern. 1897
  • Petrographic Lexicon. Supplement. Supplement in: Ученые записки Императорского Юрьевского университета [Utschenije sapiski Imperatorskogo Jurjewskogo uniwersiteta] - Acta et Commentationes Pat. Universitatis Jurievensis . Jhrg. 6, Nr. 5, 1898, 96 p. (Digitized on the download portal of the University of Tartu , complete volume)
  • Geological sketch of the Yushno-Saozersk estate and Deneshkin Kamen mountain in the northern Urals . 1900
  • Geological investigations in the area of ​​the massif and the foothills of the Kasbek, carried out in the summer of 1899 . In: Mat. Z. Geol.Russl. XXI, 1901
  • with E. Jeremina: Contributions to the petrography of the Mugodjawen . S. Petersburg 1905
  • Petrographic studies in the Central Caucasus (Digorien and Balkaria) . St. Petersburg 1905 In: Verh. D. Kaiserl. Soot. Mineralogist Society . Volume XLII, delivery 2
  • About the occurrence of lower carbon in the Guberlin Mountains / south. Urals . In: Centralblatt f. Mineral. Geol. U. Pall.Ihg. Stuttgart 1906
  • F. Loewinson-Lessing (editor): Kamennyje stroitelnyje materialyj. Petrograd 1923
  • FJ Loewinson-Lessing / EA Struve: Petrografitscheski Slowar . Moscow 1937

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of VV Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute
  2. ↑ http://www.mindat.org/min-7152.html mindat
  3. ^ Silberminz, V. (1929) Sur le gisement de cirite, de bastnaesite et d'un mineral nouveau, la lessingite, dans le district Minier de Kychtym (Oural). Acad. Sci. URSS, Leningrad, CR, Series A, pp. 55-60

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Loewinson-Lessing, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loewinson-Lessing, Fyodor Juljewitsch; Левинсон-Лессинг, Франц Юльевич (Russian); Levinson-Lessing, Franz (English)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian geologist and petrologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1939
Place of death Leningrad