James Geikie

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James Geikie (born August 23, 1839 in Edinburgh , † March 1, 1915 ibid) was a Scottish geologist who mapped in Scotland and was known as a proponent of the thesis of land glaciation in the Ice Age.

Life

He was the son of James Stuart Geikie (1812-1884), best known today as a song composer, and the younger brother of the geologist Archibald Geikie . Geikie attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh and studied at the University of Edinburgh while working for a printer. He was from 1862 at the Geological Survey, where he stayed until 1882 and worked mainly in Scotland, where he (under his brother Archibald) was District Surveyor. In 1882 he succeeded his brother Murchison as professor of geology and mineralogy at the University of Edinburgh.

He is known for his studies of the Ice Age in the Pleistocene and the impact of glaciation on geomorphology, which he came across while working on the Geological Survey in central Scotland. Glaciation on land was not yet generally accepted at that time - some geologists explained the witnesses of glaciation as the effect of pack ice or icebergs. He also took the view early that there were warm periods within the Ice Age and dated some Paleolithic finds to these interglacial periods, of which there were five according to Geikie. His main work, which established his reputation, was The Great Ice Age and its relation to the Antiquity of Man , which first appeared in 1874, but he had already discussed his theory in Geological Magazine in 1872. He also wrote two geology textbooks that were widely used at the time ( Outlines of Geology 1886, Structural and Field Geology 1905).

In 1875 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society . He was a founding member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and its president from 1904 to 1910. He was also President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the end of his life . In 1889 he received the Murchison Medal from the Geological Society of London and he received the Brisbane Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In addition to geology, he also translated poems by Heinrich Heine (published 1887).

The Geikie Glacier in Alaska and the Geikie Nunatak in the East Antarctic Coatsland are named after him.

Fonts

  • The Great Ice Age and its relation to the Antiquity of Man . London 1874, 3rd edition: E. Stanford, London 1894, archive.org
  • Geology . Chambers, 1875, archive.org , Chambers 1883 edition from Project Gutenberg
  • Historical Geology . Chambers, 1876, archive.org
  • Prehistoric Europe: a geological sketch . E. Stanford, London 1881
  • Fragments of Earth Lore: Sketches and Addresses, Geological and Geographical . J. Bartholomew and Co., Edinburgh 1893
  • Earth Sculpture or The Origin of Landforms . GP Putnam's, New York 1898, archive.org
  • Outlines of Geology . 1886; 3rd edition 1896
  • Structural and Field Geology for students of pure and applied science . 1905; Van Nostrand, 1910, archive.org ; 6th edition: Oliver and Boyd, 1953 (edited by Robert Campbell and Robert M. Craig )
  • The Antiquity of Man in Europe . Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1914, archive.org
  • Mountains, their origin, growth and decay . Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1913

literature

  • Marion Newbigin, John Smith Flett : James Geikie, the man and the geologist . Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh 1917
  • Eminent living geologists In: Geological Magazine , Volume 10, 1913, pp. 241-248
  • Geikie, James . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 11 : Franciscans - Gibson . London 1910, p. 553 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Papers of James Geikie ( Memento of May 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) in NAHSTE - Edinburgh University Library Special Collections Division
personal data
SURNAME Geikie, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British geologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1915
Place of death Edinburgh