Gerhard Schott (oceanographer)

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Gerhard Schott (1898)

Gerhard Schott (born August 15, 1866 in Tschirma , † January 15, 1961 in Hamburg ) was a German geographer and oceanographer . On the Valdivia expedition , he led the oceanographic research.

Life

Schott was born in Tschirma, Thuringia , and later studied geography and physics in Jena and Berlin . In 1891 he did his doctorate under Ferdinand von Richthofen with the thesis Surface Temperatures and Currents of the East Asian Waters . He then went on a one-year study trip to South and Southeast Asia on a sailing ship , financed by a grant from the Prussian Ministry of Culture and the Bremer shipping company Rickmers .

From 1893 Schott worked at the Meteorological Observatory in Potsdam and a year later at the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg. From 1903 he headed the oceanographic department there. He was the initiator of the Chair of Oceanography at the University of Hamburg, founded in 1919 .

As a participant in the Valdivia expedition from 1898 to 1899, he examined the waters of the Atlantic , Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean .

With his works Geography of the Atlantic Ocean (1912) and Geography of the Indian and Pacific Ocean (1935) he created an overall picture of the world ocean that was unprecedented in his time. He was the internationally best known marine researcher of his time.

Schott was a member of numerous geographical societies and from 1926 also the Leopoldina in the geography section. In 1925 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . He was the recipient of the Karl Ritter Medal (1903), the Silver Medal of the Monaco Oceanographic Institute (1911), the Seewarten Medal in Silver (1912) and the Golden Georg von Neumayer Medal (1936). Schott Inlet , a bay on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, has been named after him since 1953 .

His son Wolfgang Schott was a geologist at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and was also involved in deep-sea expeditions from the 1930s.

Works (selection)

  • Surface temperatures and currents in East Asian waters . In: From the archive of the Deutsche Seewarte . Volume 14, 1891.
  • Scientific results of a sea research trip carried out in 1891 and 1892 . Supplement No. 109 on Petermann's communications , Justus Perthes, Gotha 1893
  • Oceanography and Maritime Meteorology . (= Carl Chun (Hrsg.): Scientific results of the German deep-sea expedition on the steamer “Valdivia” 1898–1899 , Volume 1), Gustav Fischer, Jena 1902.
  • Physical oceanography , Göschen'sche Verlagshandlung, Leipzig 1903.
  • Geography of the Atlantic Ocean , Boysen, Hamburg 1912.
  • Geography of the Indian and Pacific Oceans , Boysen, Hamburg 1935.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Schott  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 217.
  2. ^ Member entry by Gerhard Schott at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on August 10, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Schott, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer and oceanographer
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Tschirma
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1961
Place of death Hamburg