Louis V. Pirsson

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Louis Valentine Pirsson (born November 3, 1860 in Fordham (New York) , † December 8, 1919 in New Haven (Connecticut) ) was an American geologist and petrologist who taught as a professor of physical geology at Yale University . Together with Charles Whitman Cross , Joseph Paxson Iddings and Henry S. Washington, he developed the CIPW standard for determining the normative mineral inventory from a chemical rock analysis.

Life

Louis V. Pirsson lost his mother at the age of four and shortly afterwards his father left him in the care of a cousin of his mother and her husband, Thomas Ford from New York , with whom he grew up. When his foster parents set off on a multi-year trip in 1869, the boy was left with a pastor, from whom he received classical training in mathematics, geography, Latin and ancient Greek. During this time he developed his interest in the natural sciences, especially ornithology . From the age of 16 he attended boarding school in Amenia (New York) . The school principal there was a Yale graduate who advised his student to continue his studies there.

Pirsson enrolled at Yale in 1879 at Sheffield Scientific School, a university affiliated college. In 1882 he graduated there in chemistry . Until 1887 he stayed at the Sheffield Scientific School as a laboratory assistant, where he also took on teaching duties. He received his first professorship for analytical chemistry in autumn 1887 at the Brooklin Polytecnic Institute . As a chemist he mainly had to teach non-specialist subjects, he resigned after just one year. When Arnold Hughes of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) was looking for an assistant for an expedition to Yellowstone National Park in 1889 , the director of the Sheffield Scientific School, George J. Brush, recommended his former assistant Pirsson. Pirsson was placed under Joseph Paxson Iddings, who studied the geology east of Yellowstone Lake . These field studies sparked his interest in geology, which he focused on after his return to New Haven by studying mineralogy , crystallography, and petrology . His first scientific work on the mineral mordenite appeared in 1890. After a geological field season in Montana , he traveled to Heidelberg in March 1891 , for which an inheritance provided him with the necessary funds. He studied mineralogy for one semester with Karl Heinrich Rosenbusch and then traveled to Alfred Lacroix in Paris , where he came into contact with the most famous mineralogists, petrographers and volcanologists of the time.

In the spring of 1892 he received an offer to teach mineralogy at the Sheffield Scientific School, which he immediately accepted. From 1893 he took courses in microscopy and classification of igneous rocks . In 1897 he was promoted to the position of full professor . In addition to his teaching, in the summer months he again carried out field studies in collaboration with the USGS, which led to the discovery of several new types of rock such as shonkinite .

In 1902 he married Eliza Trumbull Brush the daughter of the former director of the Sheffield Scientific School.

CIPW standard

Pirsson's intensive occupation with rock microscopy and petrography repeatedly confronted him with problems of the classification of igneous rocks, which at that time was still handled very inconsistently. In 1899 the four petrologists Whitmann Cross, Henry S. Washington, Joseph P. Iddings and Pirsson met to develop a new classification based on quantitative chemical analysis. Pirsson succeeded in mediating between the various positions of his specialist colleagues and in this way helped the project to its success. The publication of this new classification, which appeared in 1902, was immediately appreciated by experts. The standard named after the first letters of the four researchers is still used today, but not to classify the rocks, but to characterize the initial melt .

Membership in scientific societies

Works (selection)

  • On the Monchiquites or Analcite Group of Igneous Rocks. In: J. Geol. 4, 1896, pp. 679-690.
  • with W. Weed: Geology and Mineral Resources of the Judith Mountains of Montana. In: US Geol. Survey Ann. Rep. 18, Part 3, 1898, pp. 437-616.
  • with W. Cross, JP Iddings and HS Washington: A Quantitative Chemico-mineralogical Classification and Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. In: J. Geol. 10, 1902, pp. 555-690.
  • with W. Cross, JP Iddings and HS Washington: Quantitative Classification of Igneous Rocks. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1903.
  • with W. Cross, JP Iddings, HS Washington and HJ Johnston-Lavis: The Texture of Igneous Rocks. In: J. Geol. 14, 1906, pp. 692-707.
  • Rocks and Rock Minerals: A Manual of the Elements of Petrology without the Use of the Microscope. John Wiley & Sons, New York 1908.
  • Geology of Bermuda Island: the Igneous Platform. In: Am. J. Sci. 4th ser., 38, 1914, pp. 189-206.
  • Geology of Bermuda Island: Petrology of the Lavas. In: Am. J. Sci. 4th ser., 38, 1914, pp. 331-344.
  • Rock Classification for Engineering Students. In: Econ. Geol. 14, 1919, pp. 264-266.
  • A Textbook of Geology. Part I: Physical Geology. 2nd Edition. John Wiley and Sons, New York 1919.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pirsson, Louis V.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pirsson, Louis Valentine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist and petrologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Fordham (New York)
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1919
Place of death New Haven (Connecticut)