Volker Lorenz

Volker Lorenz (born December 15, 1941 ) is a German geologist and volcanologist . He is a professor at the University of Würzburg in the physical-volcanological laboratory.

Lorenz studied geology and palaeontology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , ETH Zurich and Cambridge University . He graduated as a geologist in Mainz and received his doctorate there in 1968 on volcanic vents from the Permian ( Rotliegend ) in the vicinity of the Donnersberg . As a post-doctoral student , he studied the Maar craters Hole-in-the-Ground and Big Hole in Oregon as a visiting scholar at the Center for Volcanology at the University of Oregon . In 1970 he was again at the University of Mainz as an assistant, where he completed his habilitation in 1974 ( on the genesis of Maaren ). In 1977 he became a professor in Mainz. In 1987 he moved to the University of Würzburg as Professor of Geology, where he headed the Institute of Geology until his retirement in 2007.

In the 1970s he pursued new ideas about the interaction of groundwater and magma and the influence of steam explosions in the formation of maars and their associated volcanic vents (as well as kimberlite vents, for example ). He carried out experimental investigations in Stuttgart (TEE, Thermal Explosion Experiment) and Würzburg.

In the 1970s and 1980s he also researched Variscan orogeny in Europe in the Permian and Carboniferous. Later he investigated volcanic chimneys in the Saar-Nahe basin (such as the Donnersberg), flood basalts in Crete, carbonatite volcanoes and the main Karoo basin in Namibia and associated tufa deposits of the Permian / Carboniferous.

In 1975 he received the Hermann Credner Prize . In 2011 he received the Serge von Bubnoff Medal .

Web links

• Physics volcanological laboratory Würzburg
• Laudation Bubnoff Medal by Harald Stollhofen, pdf