Wilhelm Ramsay
Wilhelm Ramsay (born January 20, 1865 Dalsbruk in the parish of Dragsfjärd ; † January 6, 1928 in Helsingfors ) was a Finnish geologist of Scottish descent who dealt with mineralogical and petrographic research in Scandinavia .
Youth and education
Ramsay spent his childhood around the iron foundry of Dalsbruk (Finnish: Taalintehdas). After completing his school education, he was enrolled in 1882 and completed his studies in chemistry and mineralogy in 1886 with a master's degree. From 1885 until 1887 he worked for Waldemar Christofer Brøgger in Stockholm . From 1888 to 1889 Ramsay continued his studies in the field of crystallography with Paul Heinrich von Groth in Munich and switched to petrographic lectures in Heidelberg with Karl Heinrich Rosenbusch . Between 1892 and 1893 he stayed to study mineralogy in Göttingen and at the Sorbonne in Paris .
Scientific work
He obtained his doctorate in Stockholm in 1887 under the supervision of his professors Brøgger and Anders Jonas Ångström . The topic of his dissertation is Undersökning af pleokroismen och ljusabsorptionen i epidot från Sultzbachthal (German: Investigation of pleochroism and light absorption in the epidote from Sultzbachthal ). In the same year he took part in the Great Kola Expedition and examined the nepheline syenite massif on this peninsula. He published the collected results in an article in Fennia in 1890 . Ramsay later described the geological conditions of the Umptek and the Lujaururt massif in this region.
The impressions of the Kola peninsula later prompted him to make several research trips to this region. He was accompanied by Victor Hackman in 1898 . Their preliminary work prompted the Russian Academy of Sciences to conduct further investigations, which later led to the discovery of the world's largest apatite deposits.
During the 1890s, Ramsay was involved in the geological mapping of Finland. During this work his interest in the crystalline basement developed. The results collected together with geologist Walter Wahl have been published. In this context, Ramsay coined the term Fennoskandia , today also known as the Baltic Shield , for the old crystalline core of the Scandinavian land mass . At the turn of the century he visited areas in East Karelia , especially between Lake Ladoga and Seesjärvi , where he examined the structures of the crystalline basement from the Precambrian and the overlying Quaternary sediments. Walter Wahl accompanied him on some of these trips.
With the support of the Finnish Geographical Society , Ramsay undertook research on the Kanin Peninsula in 1903 . The focus of this field work was on Quaternary surface layers and the north-west extending mountain ranges, the rocks of which in the present folding zones are younger than those of the Fennoscandian Shield. Russian researchers had already recognized these folds as a result of the Armorican - Hercynian orogeny . It was not until 1911 that results from his trip could be published that contributed to a further understanding of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments there.
With his student Matti Sauramo , Ramsay studied prehistoric sea level fluctuations and their effects on prehistoric settlements in his later years.
In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Since 1925 he was a corresponding member of the then Soviet Academy of Sciences .
University work
As a professor at the University of Helsinki, he restructured the Institute of Mineralogy and Geology. He gave his lectures in Swedish .
Publications (selection)
- Geological observations on the Kola Peninsula. In: Fennia 3 (1890), No. 1
- Beskrifting till kartbladen no.19 och 20, Hogland och Tytärsaari , 1891, explanatory report on the geological map of Finland, 1: 200,000, sheets 19 and 20
- Geologins Grunder. Helsingfors 1909
- Carte bathymetrique de Golfe de Finlande et du lac Ladoga. Atlas de Finlande 1910, Feuille No. 11, texts explicit. In: Fennia 30 (1911), No. 1
- Geologins grunder 1st 2nd edition, Helsingfors 1912
- Geologins grunder 2nd 2nd edition, Helsingfors 1913
- Fennoskandias ålder. In: Fennia 40 (1917), No. 4
literature
- Hans Hausen: The History of Geology and Mineralogy in Finland 1828-1918 . Helsinki 1968
- Martti Lehtinen: RAMSAY, Wilhelm . In: Biografiskt lexikon för Finland 4. Republiken M – Ö, 2011
Web links
- Ramsay, Wilhelm on uppslagsverket.fi
Individual evidence
- ^ Member entry by Wilhelm Ramsay at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 14, 2016.
- ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Wilhelm Ramsay. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed October 18, 2015 (Russian).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ramsay, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 20, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dalsbruk |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 6, 1928 |
| Place of death | Helsinki |