Hans Peter Laubscher (geologist)

Hans Peter Laubscher (born January 11, 1924 in Muttenz ; † 2015 in Riehen ) was a Swiss geologist and geophysicist. He is considered a pioneer of mass balance research in the Alps and was one of the first to apply plate tectonic concepts in the Alps.

Laubscher went to the humanistic high school in Basel and studied natural sciences with a major in geology in Basel with his doctorate in 1947 ( geology of the area of ​​Siegfriedblatt St. Ursanne (Bernese Jura) ). In his dissertation he dealt with the mutual influence of the Rhine Graben and the Folded Jura . He then worked as a petroleum geologist for Socony Vacuum (now Mobil Oil ) in Venezuela from 1948 to 1958 , before returning to Basel in 1958. In Venezuela he mainly worked with geophysical methods and studied the relationships between the Venezuelan molasse basin, in which the petroleum mother rock were, and the tectonic units of the coastal cordillera. He became a professor in Basel and was director of the Geological-Paleontological Institute from 1966. In 1989 he retired. Since 1989 he has been working as a consultant in oil exploration, seismic hazards and problems of radioactive disposal. He also works for the Swiss geological survey on mappings in the Jura and the computer-aided structural geological analysis of the data obtained.

In 1963/64 he was visiting associate professor for structural geology and theoretical geophysics at the University of Illinois .

In addition to the Alps, he dealt with the Swiss Jura and the Rhine Rifts and, from his time in South America, with the Venezuelan coastal cordillera, the Orinoco basin and the northern Andes of Venezuela and Colombia. He published over 100 scientific papers.

In 1993 he received the Gustav Steinmann Medal for innovative contributions to the quantification of kinematics and mass balance of tectonic systems .

He also dealt with the Basel earthquake of 1356.

In 1985 he became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei . He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and was its Allan P. Bennison Distinguished Lecturer .

Fonts

• Bau der Alpen , from Le Scienze 1974 (Italian edition of Scientific American), reprinted in Giese (Ed.) Continents and Oceans , Spektrum Verlag 1987
• Structural and seismic deformations along normal faults in the eastern Venezuela Basin , Geophysics, Volume 21, 1956, pp. 368-387
• The eastern Jura: Relations between thin-skinned and basement tectonics, local and regional , Geologische Rundschau, Volume 75, 1986, pp. 535-553
• Décollement in the Alpine system: an overview , Geologische Rundschau, Volume 77, 1988, pp. 1-9
• The Alpen-Dinaridenproblem and the Palinspasticity of the southern Tethys , Geologische Rundschau, Volume 60, 1971, pp. 813-833
• with Daniel Bernoulli Cross section from the Rhine Graben to the Po Plain , in Schweizer Geologische Kommission (editor) Geology of Switzerland , Basel, Wepf, 1980, pp. 183–190
• with Bernoulli History and Deformation of the Alps , in Kenneth Hsü (editor) Mountain Building Processes , Academic Press 1982, pp. 169-180
• The tectonic development of Northern Switzerland , Eclogae Geologicae Helveticae, Volume 80, 1987, pp. 305–322
• Large-scale kinematics of the western alps and the northern apennines and its palinspastic implications , American Journal of Science, Volume 271, 1971, Issue 10
• Alps and plate tectonics: the problem of movement diffusion at compressive plate boundaries , Journal of the German Geological Society, Volume 124, 1973, pp. 295-308

Web links

• Biography, italian
• English biography

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary of the University of Basel
2. ↑ Laudation Steinmann Medal ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Contribution to geology in: Werner Meyer : Basel fell into disrepair everywhere: the Basel earthquake of 1356 , Basel 2006