Ignaz Venetz
Ignaz Venetz (born March 28, 1788 in Visperterminen , † April 20, 1859 in Sion ) was a Swiss engineer , botanist and glaciologist . He is considered to be one of the fathers of the Ice Age theory. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Venetz ".
Live and act
Even during his work as a cantonal engineer, Venetz was concerned with the traces and effects of the glaciers and was responsible, among other things, for the attempts to prevent the Giétro glacier from falling in 1818. In the course of his work, he made the acquaintance of Jean-Pierre Perraudin (1767-1858) from Bagnes / Lourtier in Valais , who, based on his observations, had developed the theory that the glaciers in Valais had a much larger extent in prehistoric times than they are today.
In 1821 Venetz wrote a work on the extent of the glacier tracks in the Swiss Valais as an award-winning contribution to the competition "About the changes in temperature in the Swiss Alps" announced by the Swiss Society for Natural Sciences. Perraudin's reference and his investigations into this work made him aware of the widespread distribution of glacier tracks far beyond the glacier distribution at that time and extended his investigations to the Upper Valais and the Swiss Plateau . His collected observations were published in 1833 under the title “Mémoire sur les Variations de la temperature dans les Alpes de la Suisse”, seven years before Louis Agassiz published his well-known work “Etudes sur les glaciers” (“Studies on glaciers”). Together with Agassiz, Johann von Charpentier and Karl Friedrich Schimper , Venetz is considered to be one of the founders of the Ice Age theory.
In his honor, which is Venetz peak in the East Antarctic Coats Land named.
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Ignaz Venetz at the IPNI
- Heinz Balmer : Ignaz Venetz. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b A “National Research Project” on climate changes in the Alps - 180 years ago! University of Bern, Switzerland ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 8, 2008.
- ^ Research institute for hydraulic engineering, hydrology and glaciology (VAW) of the ETH Zurich : Glacier du Giétro. In: Glacier Natural Hazards. ( ethz.ch ( page no longer available ), also as a PDF ( page no longer available ), accessed on March 8, 2008).
- ↑ The father of the glacier theory , website of the glacier museum in Bagnes / Lourtier . Retrieved March 8, 2008
- ↑ The Ice Age… , Museum Neuchâtel, Switzerland, p. 3 (PDF, 125 kB) ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 8, 2008.
- ↑ Christoph Lörtscher: Agassiz 'contribution to the ice age theory - the dogma of continuous cooling . Retrieved March 8, 2008.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Venetz, Ignaz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Venetz, Ignace |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 28, 1788 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Visperterminen |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 20, 1859 |
| Place of death | Sion |