Walter Zürn

Walter Zürn (born August 21, 1937 ) is a German physicist and seismologist .

Life

Walter Zürn studied physics in Stuttgart and wrote his diploma thesis at the Institute for Metal Physics. After completing his doctorate in Stuttgart, he went to Los Angeles to attend the University of California (UCLA) for four years and has since worked on the earth's tidal and natural vibrations. During this time, a research stay took him to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica near the geographic South Pole . Although he was not an American citizen, he was appointed scientific director of the station. For his services he was awarded the Antarctic Merit Medal of the USA and in 1976 the 1515 m high Zurn Peak in Antarctica was named after him.

Then Walter Zürn returned to Germany. From 1974 he worked in the newly founded geoscientific community observatory Schiltach of the Universities of Stuttgart and Karlsruhe . a. with long-period seismic observations. In the 1980s he worked with Gerhard Müller on experiments on Newton's law of gravitation . In 2004 he was awarded the Rebeur-Paschwitz Prize of the German Geophysical Society for his outstanding scientific achievements in the field of geophysics.

Honors

• USA Antarctic Merit Medal
• Rebeur-Paschwitz Prize of the German Geophysical Society

Web links

• Laudation for the award of the Rebeur-Paschwitz Prize ( Memento from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )