Heinz A. Lowenstam
Heinz Adolf Lowenstam (born October 9, 1912 in Siemianowitz , Silesia , † June 7, 1993 in California ) was a German-American paleontologist . He is known for his discoveries in biomineralization .
Lowenstam grew up in the Silesian coal region and began collecting fossils as a teenager. He studied palaeontology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and from 1933 at the University of Munich , where he studied with Karl von Frisch , Ferdinand Broili and Edgar Dacqué , among others . For his dissertation he undertook geological and palaeontological field studies of the mountains east of Nazareth in Palestine (where he also accompanied petroleum geologists on various excursions in the Middle East), but as a Jew could no longer do his doctorate on his return in 1936 and emigrated to the USA in 1937. In 1939 he received his doctorate from the University of Chicago . During World War II, he worked in coal and oil exploration for the Illinois Geological Survey , then worked for oil companies and became curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Illinois State Museum , the Illinois state natural history museum in Springfield . During the construction of the Chicago subway , fossil coral reefs were found, which Lowenstam began to study. He discovered a continuous reef system of the Silurian from the Ozark Mountains to Greenland , which also had direct consequences for oil exploration. Lowenstam did not get any financial benefit from this, but published the results.
In Chicago he also came into contact with the isotope chemist Harold C. Urey and from 1950 researched the use of isotopes in paleoecology , in the determination of the environmental conditions of fossil living beings such as sea temperatures. In 1952 he went to Caltech as a professor and studied isotope ratios in the formation of recent coral reefs off the Bermuda Islands. In 1961 he discovered the formation of magnetite crystals in beetle snails . He also suspected its use as a compass to orient the animals.
In 1964 he received the Paleontological Society Medal . In 1980 he became a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in the same year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Munich.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Biostratigraphic studies of the Inter-Niagaran Reef Formations in Northeastern Illinois, Illinois State Museum in 1948
- ↑ Urey initially obtained a temperature of 60 degrees when examining the isotope ratios in the calcareous shells of fossils that are 300 million years old; Lowenstam found that this was a relic of recrystallization under the influence of hydrothermal solutions
- ↑ Magnetite in the denticle capping of recent chitons (Polyplacophora), Geolog. Soc. America Bulletin, Vol. 73, 1962, pp. 435-438
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lowenstam, Heinz A. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lowenstam, Heinz Adolf (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American paleontologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 9, 1912 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Siemianowitz , Silesia |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1993 |
| Place of death | California |