Kalervo Rankama

Kaarlo Kalervo Rankama (born February 22, 1913 in Helsinki ; † 1995 ) was a Finnish geoscientist who dealt in particular with geochemistry . He was a professor at Helsinki University .

Rankama studied in Helsinki, where he was an assistant at the University's Mineralogical-Geological Institute from 1936 to 1938 and then assistant geologist in the geological survey.

His textbook Geochemistry with Thure Georg Sahama promoted geochemical research in the 1950s. In his 1954 book Isotope Geology , he introduced the term isotope geology. In 1960, because of the rapid development of the subject, another textbook, Progress in Isotope Geology, followed.

In Finland, the chemist Walter Wahl from the University of Helsinki first carried out isotope studies on minerals containing uranium, thorium and lead in the 1940s. In 1948 Rankama (at the University of Minnesota) used isotopic chemical methods to investigate the carbon content of spheres in phyllites from Finland, which JJ Sederholm had first investigated (Corycium enigmaticum) and which are now interpreted as relics of algae on mud globules in turbidites .

In 1968 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina , in 1971 he received the Gustav Steinmann Medal , which (according to the laudation) expanded the quantitative aspects of geology based on fundamental geochemical research .

The mineral rankamaite is named after him.

Fonts

• with Thure Georg Sahama Geochemistry , University of Chicago Press 1950, 1960
• Progress in isotope geology , Interscience 1965
• Isotope Geology , 2nd edition, Pergamon Press 1956
• Editor of the series Geologic systems , Interscience, from 1963 ( e.g. the parts The Precambrian , The Quarternary , several volumes each)
• Suomen geologica , Helsinki 1964

literature

• Ilmari Johannes Haapala History of finnish bedrock research in M. Lehtinen, PA Nurmi, OT Rämö Precambrian geology of Finland. Key to the evolution of the fennoscandian shield , Developments in Precambrian Geology, Volume 14, Elsevier 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Short biography in Rankama About a new prospecting method , Geologische Rundschau, Volume 32, 1942, pp. 575-578, first page with photo , referring to geochemical methods for ore prospecting
2. ↑ Laudation Steinmann Medaille ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2016 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. 
3. ↑ Webmineral
4. ↑ Sahama (1910–1983), from 1945 to 1977 associate professor of geochemistry in Helsinki, where he received his doctorate in 1936, and member of the Finnish Academy (from 1972)
5. ↑ Born in 1939, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in Helsinki since 1982