Gustav Georg Winkler

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Gustav Georg Winkler (born August 1, 1820 in Niederaudorf , † January 26, 1896 in Munich ) was a German geologist .

Life

The toll house in Niederaudorf, Winkler's birthplace

Winkler first studied theology in Freising and Munich , but then switched to studying mineralogy and geognosy . One of his academic teachers here was Karl Emil von Schafhäutl . He received his doctorate on July 31, 1855, became an assistant at the geological state collection in 1856, and completed his habilitation in 1857 as a lecturer at the University of Munich for the subjects of mineralogy and geognosy.

Scientific work

In 1858 Winkler made a trip to Iceland with the legal historian Konrad Maurer , about which he then wrote two books, a travel report and, separately, a scientific evaluation of his observations. The latter is one of the last documents of the doctrine of Neptunism , which was written in Germany by an academic geologist. Winkler puts forward the thesis according to which the rocks of the island of Iceland were essentially formed by sedimentation , and expressly includes the surface erosion (plateau basalts) as they occur in the Icelandic West Fjords. This interpretation is remarkable because Iceland had already been identified in the 19th century by numerous European geologists (the best-known example is Robert Wilhelm Bunsen ), who had already correctly recognized the largely volcanic genesis of the island.

The focus of Winkler's scientific work in Germany was on geological and paleontological issues relating to the Bavarian Alps .

Publications

  • The pseudomorphoses of the mineral kingdom. Critical compilation of all facts found so far and attempted explanations of new mineral formations, with a proposal for a new nomenclature and division of the same , Palm, Munich, 1855.
  • Iceland. Its inhabitants, land formation and volcanic nature. Westermann, Braunschweig 1861.
  • Iceland, the construction of its mountains and their geological significance. Gummi, Munich 1863.
  • The rock theory , Gummi, Munich 1864.

literature

  • Wilhelm von Gümbel, Winkler, Georg Gustav in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 43 (1898), pp. 451–452 online version
  • Konrad Maurer : Journey to Iceland (in the summer of 1958) . Annotated edition, ed. by Alessia Bauer / Kurt Schier , Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2017 (Munich Northern Studies, Volume 31), ISBN 978-3-8316-4677-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Baptismal register Pf. Oberaudorf, CB323, M4748, fol. 52. ( Facsimile ; according to the ADB, Winkler came from "a peasant family in the Bavarian mountains, where he was born in Audorf on August 1, 1820".)
personal data
SURNAME Winkler, Gustav Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederaudorf
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1896
Place of death Munich