Henry Potonié

Henry Potonié (around 1900)

Henry Potonié (born November 16, 1857 in Berlin ; † November 28, 1913 there ) was a German botanist and paleobotanist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Potonié ". He was a leading expert in coal geology and paleontology.

Potonié was the son of the Parisian writer Edmond Potonié and the daughter Marie of the royal Prussian court painter Johannes Sievers. He began his botanical studies at the Berlin University and finished with the dissertation "On the composition of the vascular bundles in vascular cryptogams ". His scientific career led him to the Botanical Garden and Museum in 1880, later to the Prussian Geological State Institute and the Bergakademie Berlin . Here and at the Berlin University he taught paleobotany and coal geology . Since 1885 he worked in the famous palaeobotanical collection and became a profound expert on the flora of the prehistoric times (textbook of plant paleontology ).

In the dispute of the 19th century about autochthonous (locally formed) or allochthonous formation of coal, he advocated a predominantly autochthonous formation in the 1890s (of which fossil tree stumps such as in the lignite mines of Senftenberg provided evidence). However, he also spoke out in favor of allochthony in individual cases and introduced the term secondary allochthony (for the rearrangement of coal) for lignite. His renewed focus on allochthony led at the beginning of the 20th century to a dispute between W. Tille (1915, allochthonia, Potonié) and Friedrich Raefler († 1941) (autochthony). Otfried Wagenbreth describes the classification of biogenic, combustible rocks (caustobiolites) introduced by Potonié into digested sludge rocks (sapropelites), according to Potonié origin of petroleum (1904), coal (humus rocks) and resins and waxes (liptobiolites) as a symbol of the climax of classical coal geology. In 1903 he introduced the term coaling . He saw the coal forests as tropical swamps and fens, and also the swamp theory for lignite (at the beginning of the 20th century a dispute, Walther Gothan and Richard Kräusel advocated the dry peat theory, i.e. significantly drier forests). On November 3, 1902 ( matriculation number 3155 ) he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Potonié was also committed to a well-founded popularization of the natural sciences. He was on the board of the German Society for Folk Natural History, was a lecturer at the Humboldt Academy in Berlin and editor of the natural science weekly .

His son Robert Potonié was also a noted paleobotanist.

Fonts

• The flora of northern Germany in the different epochs, especially since the Ice Age. Habel, Berlin 1886, digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf .
• Illustrated flora of northern and central Germany: with an introduction to botany. Springer, Berlin 1889, digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf , 6th edition, Fischer, Jena 1913.
• Illustrations and descriptions of fossil plant remains of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic formations, Prussian Geological State Institute, 1903.
• with Jakob Stoller , Walther Gothan , Adolph Frank : Paleobotanical internship. Borntraeger, Berlin 1913.
• Textbook of plant palaeontology: with special regard to the needs of the geologist. Dümmler, Berlin 1899.
  • later editions as Potonie's textbook of palaeobotany, edited by Walther Gothan , online at archive.org.
• Coal, its essence and becoming. Reclam 1921 (supplemented and edited by Robert Potonié), online at archive.org.
• The skeleton of the plant. Habel, Berlin 1881.
• Kaustobiolithe , Geologische Rundschau 1, 1910, 327–336

Web links

• Literature by and about Henry Potonié in the catalog of the German National Library
• Author entry for Henry Potonié at IPNI.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wagenbreth: History of Geology in Germany. Springer 1999, p. 195.
2. ↑ member entry of Henry Potonie at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on August 9, 2017th
3. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public 1848–1914 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, p. 362, 366 f., 505 f .