Walter Biese

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Walter Biese (* July 17 or 24, 1895 in Berlin ; † June 9, 1960 in Chile ) was a German paleontologist, cave researcher and geologist.

Life

Biese was a trained typesetter, attended evening grammar school and studied paleontology in Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1927 under Josef Felix Pompeckj on the encrinids of the Lower Muschelkalk of Central Germany.

From 1929 until the presumably compulsory removal for political reasons he was with the Prussian Geological State Institute (PGLA). As an active Social Democrat, he was not acceptable to the National Socialists. In 1934 he emigrated via Switzerland and France to Chile, where he arrived in 1937 and worked as a mining geologist. He also carried out cave research in Switzerland (1935 cave cadastre of Switzerland on behalf of ETH Zurich with 450 caves) and Chile (marble karst on the island of Diego de Almagro ). At the end of the 1950s he visited Germany again.

He is considered a pioneer in researching the formation of the gypsum and anhydrite caves in the southern Harz and Kyffhäuser. He distinguished between crevice, lye and swelling caves and transferred the theory developed by Karl Gripp in 1913 on the Kalkberg in Bad Segeberg ( Laugh cave in gypsum) to the southern Harz. The first monograph to over gypsum karst caves in the Harz and Kyffhäuser appeared in 1931. In the sequel of 1933 he expanded the study area from (limestone caves in the Rhineland, resin eastern Alps as Dachstein Ice Caves , Dachstein Mammoth Caves , Slovenia) and refuted the Höhlenflußtheorie of Bock . Instead of hypothetical cave rivers, he saw the vault as a natural, statically stable product of fractures due to the mountain pressure. At the time this was heavily criticized in Germany and led to personal hostility, but later prevailed.

In 1932 he opened a research station in the Hermannshöhle in Rübeland , where he settled grotto olms. It was the first German speleological research station that he maintained until around 1934.

In 1959 he became an honorary member of the Association of German Cave and Karst Researchers. In 1930, the Biese shaft in Iberg (Harz) was named after him.

Biese was a rock climber. At Pentecost 1921, Walter Biese stayed in Saxon Switzerland . In the rope team with Otto Dietrich (an important climber in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains) he was involved in the first ascent of the Schwarzschluute Tower (Pfingstweg) and the Kampfturm (Pfingstweg). In the "Mitteilungen des Sächsischer Bergsteigerbundes" (November 1921) he reported under "Der Pfingstweg".

Fonts

  • About the encrinites of the lower Muschelkalk of Central Germany. Treatises of the Prussian Geological State Institute, New Series Issue 103, Berlin 1927
  • About cave formation I: Formation of the gypsum caves on the southern edge of the Harz and at Kyffhäuser, Abh. Preuss. Geol. L.-ANF 137, 1931, II: Formation of limestone caves (Rhineland, Harz, Eastern Alps, Karst), Abh. Preuss. Geol. L.-ANF 146, 1933
  • About stalactite and sinter formation, Speleol. Jb. 13/14, 1933, pp. 84-93
  • Cadastre of the Swiss caves, 1935, online

literature

  • RG Spöcker, Walter Biese in memory, Mitt. Verb. Dt. Höhlen- u. Karst research. 7, 1961, pp. 1-2
  • F. Reinboth: The history of cave research in the Harz, Karst u. Höhle 1994/95, pp. 63-80
  • H. Schaffler: The "cave research" in the Third Reich, Karst u. Höhle 1989/90, pp. 33-97

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Spöcker (see literature) July 17th, according to V. Freyberg, Das geologische Schrifttum über Nordost-Bayern (1476–1965). Part II. Biographical Author Register, Geologica Bavarica 71, 1974, pp. 1-177, July 24th
  2. ↑ His predecessor Paul Egli recorded around 200 in 1905 and around 9000 are known today (2013).
  3. ↑ Biese, About Karst occurrences in Chile, Die Höhle 7, 1956, pp. 91–96
  4. ^ Biese, On the Marble Island Diego de Almagro (Chile), Natur u. Volk 87, 1957, pp. 113-144.
personal data
SURNAME Biese, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist, cave researcher and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1895 or July 24, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1960
Place of death Chile