Friedrich Schmid-Wallis

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Flint (Paramoudra) made from writing chalk. Location: Hemmoor

Friedrich Schmid-Wallis , formerly Friedrich Schmid, (born December 9, 1925 , † August 13, 2018 ) was a German paleontologist .

Schmid-Wallis studied in Hamburg (diploma 1950), was at the Geological State Institute Hamburg and received his doctorate there in 1951 (The cephalopods and the stratigraphy of the Maastricht from Hemmoor-Basbeck (Niederelbe) and a comparative morphology of the scaphites). From 1952 to 1987 he worked at the Lower Saxony State Office for Soil Research in Hanover. In addition, Schmid-Wallis was an extraordinary professor from 1975. He last lived in Gottmadingen .

Schmid-Wallis specialized in chalk fossils and stratigraphy in northern Germany, especially in the chalk pits of Hemmoor and Kronsmoor (fossils from the Maastrichtian ). There he began researching in 1947. He was the first to study the oriented deposition of fossils, which resulted in Schmid's rule (1949): attached larvae always aim at the highest point of a sea urchin, for example. This can be used to determine the orientation of the fossil when it was deposited. In 1955 he published a first comprehensive study of the boundary profile of the Lower and Upper Maastrichtium opened up in Hemmoor. When the end of mining in the pit became apparent in the 1970s (completed in 1977 and finally closed in 1982, today it is partially filled with water), intensive fossil recordings were made from 1973 to 1978 according to stratigraphic criteria as part of a DFG program (geological correlation research) carried out. Of the total thickness of the Maastrichtium in northern Germany of 232 m, known from drilling, 141 m were exposed in the pit up to 120 m deep.

In 1974 he discovered in the chalk pit of Hemmoor an unusually large flint ball weighing 500 kg (so-called Paramoudra formations in flint columns), which is now exhibited in the Hemmoorium Museum. In chalk stratigraphy, he mainly worked with Max-Gotthard Schulz and Walter Kegel Christensen .

In 2012 he became an honorary member of the Paleontological Society .

Fonts

  • Friedrich Schmid: Oriented attachment of Ostrea vesicularis Lamarck, Dimyodon nilssoni Hagenow and Crania parisiensis Defrance. Mitt. Geol. State Institute; Hamburg. 19, 1949: 53–56 (Schmid's rule)
  • Friedrich Schmid: The previous investigations on the Unter / Obermaastricht border profile of Hemmoor (Niederelbe), its sequence of layers and key forms, Mitt. Geolog. State Institute Hamburg, 23, 1955, 75–86
  • Friedrich Schmid as editor and co-author: Fossils from writing chalk, geolog. Yearbook A 61, 1982, 293 pages (The Maastricht from Northwest Germany 2) (results of the DFG priority program from Hemmoor)

literature

  • Fritz J. Krüger : The Hemmoor chalk pit . In Werner K. Weidert: Classical sites of paleontology . Volume 1, Goldschneck Verlag 1988

References and comments

  1. ↑ So z. B. in Ulrich Lehmann, Paleontological Dictionary, 4th edition, Springer, Spektrum 1994, p. 213
  2. ^ Egbert Schröder, Colossus from the Kreidesee, Cuxhavener Nachrichten, May 11, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Schmid-Wallis, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmid, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1925
DATE OF DEATH 13th August 2018