Karl Beurlen

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Karl Theodor Beurlen (born April 17, 1901 in Aalen , † December 27, 1985 in Tübingen ) was a German paleontologist .

Life

Beurlen was the son of an elementary school teacher and had an early interest in science. From 1919 he studied geology at the University of Tübingen , where he received his doctorate from Edwin Hennig (1882–1977) in 1923 in paleontology on ammonites of the Malm and was then an assistant. In 1925 he went to the University of Königsberg . In 1934 he became professor and head of the Geological-Paleontological Institute at Kiel University . From 1937 to 1945 Beurlen was head of the soil science department (geology, mineralogy, geophysics) in the Reich Research Council . In 1941 he became professor for paleontology and stratigraphy at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and head of the palaeontological institute there. Since he was initially released after the war due to the denazification process, he went to Brazil in 1950, where he worked as a paleontologist for the Brazilian State Geological Institute in Rio de Janeiro . While working on the Gondwana fossil fauna found there, he became a supporter of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift (which was still largely rejected at that time) . From 1958 he built the geological-paleontological institute at the newly founded University of Recife . Due to the changing political conditions after the military coup in 1964, he retired in 1969 and returned to Germany. There he wrote several popular science books on fossils that were widely distributed.

In his writings in the 1930s he was a follower of Darwin's theory of deviating orthogenetic evolution theories (sudden changes in evolution), influenced by National Socialist ideology. At that time, other paleontologists in Germany, such as Otto Schindewolf ( doctrine of typostrophes ) and Edwin Hennig, pursued similar ideas .

In 1962 in Brazil he described, among other things, the stratigraphy of the Cretaceous Santana Formation in the Araripe Basin west of Recife, known for its many fish fossils .

In 1936 Beurlen was elected a member of the Leopoldina Academic Academy . In 1937 he was President of the German Geological Society and in 1938 of the Paleontological Society. From 1942 he was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1970 he received an honorary doctorate in Recife , in 1972 he received the gold medal of the Brazilian Geological Society and in 1985 the silver medal of the Brazilian Paleontological Society.

He had been married since 1925 and had five children. Two of his sons also became geologists.

Fonts

  • Comparative tribal history: basics, methods, problems with special consideration of the higher crabs . Borntraeger, Berlin 1930
  • The law of the surmountability of death in biology . Franke, Breslau 1933
  • Earth and life history. An Introduction to Historical Geology. Quelle & Meyer, 1939
  • Geology and paleontology . Winter, Heidelberg 1943
  • Primeval life and theory of descent . Schwab, Stuttgart 1949
  • New track finds from the Franconian Triassic. In: N. Jb. Geol. Paläont., Mh., Jg. 1950, pp. 308-320
  • Geology of brazil . Borntraeger, Berlin 1970
  • The geological evolution of the Atlantic Ocean . Swiss beard, Stuttgart 1974
  • Geology: The History of the Earth and Life . 2nd Edition. Franckh, Stuttgart 1975
  • What petrification is that? Kosmos Naturführer, Franckh, 10th edition 1978
  • with Horst Gall, Gerhard Schairer : The Alb and its fossils . Franckh, Stuttgart, 1978, 2nd edition 1981
  • Fossils. Invertebrate fossils with appendix vertebrates and plants . Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1986
  • Fossils - Handbook and Guide for the Collector . Natur-Verlag, Augsburg 1990

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Olivier Rieppel: Karl Beurlen (1901–1985). Nature Mysticism and Aryan Paleontology .
  2. ^ Member entry of Karl Beurlen at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 3, 2016.
  3. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Karl Beurlen at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 3, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Beurlen, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beurlen, Karl Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Bask
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1985
Place of death Tübingen