Richard Lang (geologist)

Grave of the geologist Richard Lang (1882–1935) in the forest cemetery in Munich.

Richard Lang (born September 27, 1882 in Eßlingen am Neckar , † April 18, 1935 in Munich ) was a German geologist, soil scientist and agricultural chemist.

After graduating from high school in Esslingen in 1901, Lang did a commercial apprenticeship in Cologne and from 1902 studied business administration, chemistry and physics in Leipzig with a focus on physical chemistry. Among other things, he studied with Johannes Wislicenus and Wilhelm Ostwald . The course served as preparation for the planned takeover of the family's factory, which he joined in 1904. In 1905 he gave up to study geology at the TH Stuttgart and in Tübingen with a doctorate in Tübingen in 1908 on the middle Keuper in southern Württemberg. He was an assistant at the Geological Institute in Tübingen and completed his habilitation in 1910 (contribution to the stratigraphy of the middle Keuper between the Swabian Alb and the Swiss Jura). Afterwards he was a private lecturer in soil science in Tübingen and assistant to Ernst Koken . In 1912/13, after Koken's death, he represented his chair and in 1913/14 he took part in an expedition to Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas. In the First World War he was a soldier from 1914, most recently in a leading position as military geologist with the title of professor. In 1917 he became an associate professor in Tübingen and in 1919 an associate professor at the University of Halle and in 1927 he became a full professor of soil science and agricultural chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . He was head of the Soil Science Institute of the Bavarian Forest Research Institute.

Richard Lang defined, among other things, the rain factor in 1915 , in which he related the average annual amount of precipitation to the average temperature and thus to have an indicator of the aridity of a region and its effect on soil formation.

Fonts

• The middle Keuper in southern Württemberg , parts I and II. Annual books of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg, 65, 1909, pp. 77–131, Part III and IV, Volume 66, 1910, pp. 1–54
• Contribution to the stratigraphy of the middle Keuper between the Swabian Alb and the Swiss Jura. Geol. Pal. Abh. NF 9, H. 4, 1913
• Attempt at an exact classification of soils in climatic and geological terms , intern. Mitt. F. Soil science, Berlin 1915
• Weathering and soil formation as an introduction to soil science , Schweitzerbart 1920
• More on the swamp marsh nature of brown coals , Brown coal 23, 1924, 493–498

literature

• Entry in Hans-Michael Körner, Large Bavarian Biographical Encyclopedia, De Gruyter

Web links

Commons : Richard Lang  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Richard Lang in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis