Henri Besairie

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Henri-Michel Edouard Besairie (born March 16, 1898 in Castres (Tarn) , † May 22, 1978 in Antananarivo ) was a French geologist and long-time head of the geological service of Madagascar .

Life

Besairie was born in Castres, the son of a philosophy professor. He attended the Lyceum in Castres and then studied geology with Charles Jacob at the École du Pétrole of the University of Toulouse . After completing his studies, he traveled to Madagascar for the first time in 1922 and was hired as a geologist at the geological service ( Service géologique ). The following year he founded the Geology Museum in the Ampandrianomby district of Antananarivo, which still exists today.

He summarized his early field studies in Madagascar in his dissertation, submitted in 1930, entitled Recherches géologiques à Madagascar: contribution à l'étude des ressources minérales , with which he received his doctorate in engineering at the University of Toulouse . In the same year he was appointed to the post of head of the geological service of Madagascar, where he remained until his retirement in 1967. In the late 1930s he left Madagascar for a few months and worked on the French Somali coast .

In the 1950s, Besairie began a geological mapping program that systematically mapped the entire country. To this end, he expanded Madagascar's geological service considerably, in 1948 48 people worked under his leadership, in 1957 there were 187. In 1962, he launched a "Week of Geology" at which French and Malagasy geologists presented their results in lectures. This event continued annually until 1971 and the results were published in symposium volumes, the Comptes Rendus de la Semaine Géologique . In addition to the scientific exploration of Madagascar, Besairie mainly devoted himself to applied geology, the exploration of various ore and mineral deposits in order to promote the economic development of the country. In 1973 he published a 13-sheet map series, the Carte Potentiel de Minier , on a scale of 1: 500,000, on which all known ore and mineral deposits were shown, broken down according to their economic importance and summarized in mining districts.

Honors

Works (selection)

Besairie wrote over 200 monographs, magazine and book articles. In addition, he was involved as a mapping geologist and later as editor of the geological maps of Madagascar 1: 200,000 and 1: 100,000. From this he compiled the geological overview maps 1: 500,000 (8 sheets) and 1: 1,000,000 (3 sheets).

  • Fossiles caractéristiques du Nord et du Nord-ouest de Madagascar (1932)
  • Monograph géologique du Sénégal: compilation, étude critique, essai de mise au point (1943)
  • Carte géologique de la côte française des Somalis, à l'échelle du 1 / 500.000e: Notice explicative (1946)
  • La Côte Française des Somalis (1947)
  • Le Précambien de Madagascar (1954)
  • Le système crétace à Madagascar, with Maurice Collignon (1956)
  • Lexique Stratigraphique International Volume IV, Afrique Fascicule 11, Madagascar. Congrès géologique international-Commission de stratigraphie. Together with M. Collignon (1956)
  • Lexique Stratigraphique International Volume IV, Afrique Fascicule 11, Madagascar (supplément). Congrès géologique international - Commission de stratigraphie. Together with M. Collignon (1960)
  • Gîtes minéraux de Madagascar (1966)
  • Description geologique du massif ancien de Madagascar (1970–1973)
  • Géologie de Madagascar 1, Les Terrains sédimentaires, with Maurice Collignon (1971)
  • Précis de géologie malgache (1973)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Géologie et minéralogie ( French , PDF; 1.7 MB) horizon.documentation.ird.fr. P. 302. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
  2. ^ Page of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer , accessed on October 30, 2012
  3. ↑ www.madagate.com ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2010 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. , accessed October 22, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.madagate.com
  4. ↑ List of members of the Academie, letter B, accessed on February 9, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Besairie, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Besairie, Henri-Michel Edouard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French geologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Castres (Tarn)
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1978
Place of death Antananarivo