Friedrich Hoffmann (geologist)

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Friedrich Hoffmann (born July 6, 1797 in Wehlau , † February 6, 1836 in Berlin ) was a German geologist, volcanologist and professor at the University of Berlin . He was a pioneer of geological exploration of northwest Germany (especially the Mesozoic era ) and volcanism.

Life

Hoffmann was born in East Prussia , where his father supervised the mills on the Pinnau in Wehlau. He moved with the family via Königsberg to Berlin , where his father headed the Statistical Bureau from 1810. Hoffmann attended the Friedrichswerder High School in Berlin and was interested in collecting plants and animals even as a schoolboy. In the Wars of Liberation he fought as a volunteer with the hunters ( Dresden , Leipzig , Frankfurt , Freiburg , Brienne , Paris ) from 1813 . Then he made up his Abitur in Berlin, with exam preparation mainly in self-study, and began to study medicine in Berlin in 1814, which was briefly interrupted in 1815 by participating in the wars of liberation. From 1819 he studied in Göttingen , where he turned to geology and mineralogy under the influence of Friedrich Hausmann , which he continued in Berlin with Christian Samuel Weiß . From 1820 ( coming from Magdeburg and Helmstedt ) he studied the geology of the Harz region and extended this to other areas of northern and central Germany (Weser region, gypsum mountains from Bad Segeberg and Lüneburg , West Thuringia, Hoher Meißner , copper slate from the Richelsdorf mountains ) Helgoland (which he was one of the first to investigate geologically), which led to its first publication in 1823, in which he used the main strike directions to form tectonic conclusions for the Mesozoic Era (in addition to the Triassic especially the Jurassic and Cretaceous) of northern Germany and its connection with that in England used. He went far beyond the first approaches of Abraham Gottlob Werner . The use of the streak lines to mark larger geological units built on Leopold von Buch and Elie de Beaumont . The work drew the attention of Leopold von Buch and Alexander von Humboldt , who supported his habilitation in Halle in 1823 (De vallium in Germania boreali principalium directione memorabili congrua). In 1824 he became an associate professor in Halle and continued his geological survey of north-west Germany, presented in a book published in 1830. In 1824 he penetrated west to the Rhenish Slate Mountains, in 1825 in the northwest to Münster and Bentheim, in 1826 in the Ore Mountains (whereby he identified an Ore Mountains strike direction) and Fichtel Mountains and in 1827 the area between the Harz and Thuringian Forest. In doing so, he took around 2,000 height measurements and explored an area of ​​around 650 square miles. During the evaluation in Berlin from 1827 to 1829 he was financially supported by the Prussian Ministry.

He then turned on a trip to Italy from 1828 to 1833 to research volcanism , which he saw as the driving force behind mountain formation. On the trip he also visited Vienna, Trieste, Venice, Florence, Siena, Elba and met the Swiss geologist Arnold Escher von der Linth in Rome , with whom he became friends. He briefly visited Vesuvius (in which he observed a minor eruption on the return trip in 1832), but concentrated on Sicily and Mount Etna and in 1831 observed the formation of the volcanic island Ferdinandea in the sea off Sicily (before Constant Prévost ), which, however, resumed in 1832 disappeared. He also observed a Stromboli eruption and made a geological map of Sicily. Hoffmann also visited the marble quarries in Carrara and published about them. He correctly interpreted the auger holes at the Serapis Temple in Pozzuoli as an indication of mainland subsidence and uplift. On his return he became an associate professor in Berlin in 1834 and gave lectures on geology and its history, volcanoes and earthquakes, paleontology, hydrography and physical geography. He died soon after of a chronic illness - on his return trip from Italy in 1833 he had a physical breakdown (probably tuberculosis). His lectures and travel notes from Italy were published posthumously.

It is to him (1823) and Christian Keferstein (1824) that the name Keuper , first introduced into literature by Leopold von Buch, is attributed.

Fonts

  • Physical geography: Lectures held at the University of Berlin in 1834 and 1835, Berlin: Nicolaische Buchhandlung, 1837 (Volume 1 of the Nachlassen Schriften, with a list of publications and biography), Archives
  • History of geognosy and description of volcanic phenomena: Lectures held at the University of Berlin in the years 1834 and 1835, Berlin: Nicolaische Buchhandlung, 1838 (Volume 2 of the Nachlassen Schriften)
  • Attempt at a systematic arrangement of mountain types according to their natural relationship to one another, Isis, Book VIII, 1821, p. 710
  • Contributions to the geognostic knowledge of Northern Germany, Berlin 1823
  • Overview of the orographic and geognostic conditions in north-western Germany, Leipzig 1830 (with atlas)
  • Intorno al nuovo Vulcano presso la città di Sciacca, Palermo 1831
  • Geognostic observations on a trip through Italy and Sicily, Berlin 1839 (also in Karsten's Archive 13, 1839)

Some essays:

  • Some remarks on the vegetation and fauna of Heligoland, negotiations of the Ges. D. Friends of Nature Research Berlin 1, 1829
  • On the nature of the Roman soil, along with some general remarks on the geognostic character of Italy, Poggendorff's Annalen, Volume 16, p. 1
  • About the Albanergebirge and the Aetna, Karsten's Arch. NR III., 1831, p. 361 * About the Serapis Temple near Pozzuoli, Karsten's Arch. NR III., 1831, p. 373
  • About the tertiary formations on the coast of Sicily, etc., Karsten's Arch. NR III., 1831, p. 383
  • About the Cape Passaro and the Val di Noto, Karsten's Arch. NR III., 1831, p. 397
  • Relation of the tremors observed in Palermo in the last 40 years, etc., Poggendorff's Annalen 24, 1832, p. 49
  • About the volcanic island formed in the Mediterranean Sea, Poggendorffs Annalen 24, 1832, p. 65
  • Over the bones leading grotto of Mardolce near Palermo, Karsten's Arch., NR IV., 1832, p. 253
  • About the geognostic conditions of the Lipari Islands, Poggendorff's Annalen 26, 1832, p. 1
  • About the mountain conditions in the county of Massa Carrara, Karsten's Arch., NR VI., P. 229
  • Mémoire sur les terrains vulcaniques de Naples, de la Sicile, des îles de Lipari, Bull. Dl soc. geol. d. France, III, 1833, p. 170
  • Observations sur les communications de M. Prevost relatives à la Sicile, Bull. Dl soc. geol. d. France, III, 1833, p. 175
  • Observations sur le marbre de Carrare et quelques fossiles de la Spezia, Bull. Dl soc. geol. d. France, III, 1833, p. 179
  • Observations faites avec Escher sur les porphyres au bord des Alpes dans le canton de Ticino, Bull. Dl soc. geol. d. France, IV., 1834, pp. 103 and 326

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edgar Nitsch: Keuper 1820–34: Birth of a stratigraphic term. Annals of Science, Volume 53, 1996, 489-500, abstract
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and volcanologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Wehlau
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1836
Place of death Berlin