Abraham Gottlob Werner

Abraham Gottlob Werner ( born September 25, 1749 Wehrau, † June 30, 1817 in Dresden ) was a German mineralogist and is considered the founder of geology, the term used until the beginning of the 19th century for the study of structure and the construction of the earth's solid crust.

Life and work

Werner was the son of the Counts of Solms - 's ironworks inspector to Wehrau and Lorenz village, Abraham David Werner, born in 1764 and already employed as cabin clerk and assistant to his father. He moved in 1769 at the Freiberg Mining Academy. Since 1771 he stayed at the University of Leipzig, where he studied law and later science and at times was a pupil of Johann Carl Gehler.

In 1775 he was appointed Carl Pabst von Ohain Eugenius as an inspector and teacher of mineralogy back to the Mining Academy in Freiberg, where he remained until his death. Werner attracted students from all over Europe and even from America. Under Werner's students being famous names such as Alexander von Humboldt, Franz von Baader, Leopold von Buch, the palaeobotanist Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim, Friedrich Mohs, Jean François d' Aubuisson de Voisins, Johann Karl Wilhelm Voigt ( of his greatest enemies as a critic of Neptunism was ) and Robert Jameson. He developed the mineralogy as a separate from the Mining Engineering Subject and held first talks on the geology as a science of the physical and mineralogical composition of the Earth as a whole; he made so that the earth observation in empirical science.

Werner also developed one of the first systematic mineral classifications, which, however, is no longer in use today. They included not only minerals according to the present definition also earth, rocks and the mineral kingdom associated with organic natural products. Its characteristics teaching and mineral descriptions are considered as classical.

Werner was reached after investigations on Scheibenbergstraße 1787/88 to the view that the origin of the formation of minerals and the alteration of the earth's surface is to be sought in the water, thus founding the so-called Neptunism: All rocks were formed, therefore, one behind the other in a framework established by the Flood Ocean; only magmatic, then metamorphic rocks, sedimentary rocks and it eventually surface sediments were deposited. In contrast to this thesis was the view taken for example by James Hutton plutonism, who won ultimately.

Werner received in 1791 from Oberbergamt the order to perform the required of him long geognostical country investigation. From 1816 assisted the ailing Carl Werner thereby Amandus Kühn, who continued the work after his death. Werner died in 1817 in Dresden and was buried in the Green Cemetery of St. Marien in Freiberg.

The sole heir to his only sister Christiane Sophie was († November 9, 1840 ), widowed pastor Glaubitz to Hirschberg in Silesia, which built a beneficent in his sense Foundation with a foundation of 5000 thalers, which had endure even after her death. This served to " help poor, sick, mountain ready miners and poor widows and orphans abortive miners ".

In 1851, Abraham Gottlob Werner was erected a building designed by Prof. Johann Eduard hypocrites monument in the promenades to Freiberg. Mineralogical Society of Dresden sat him in 1848 a monument next to the new Anne Cemetery in Loebtau and named the Werner Street in Loebtau after him.

Werner remained unmarried and had no children.

Abraham Gottlob Werner medal

The German Mineralogical Society (DMG ) annually awards the Abraham Gottlob Werner medal in gold and silver. Will be honored individuals who achieve outstanding academic achievements ( silver) or to acquire large contributions to the promotion of Mineralogy ( gold). In addition, an Abraham Gottlob Werner lapel pin is awarded. Among the winners of the last years:

• 2013 Gold: Heidi Höfer, Silver: Francois Holtz
• 2012 Bernard Wood,
• 2011 Rüdiger Schulz for his outstanding contribution to the promotion of geothermal energy.
• 2010 Silver: Hans -Rudolf Wenk for mineralogical research on rock deformation and defect analysis of minerals
• 2009 Randolf Rausch for work in hydrogeology
• 2009 Silver: Andrew Putnis for significant research in the field of phase transitions and the mineral - fluid interactions
• 2008 Gold: David Ruby for research on the kinetics of metamorphic reactions and the relationship between rheology and transformation plasticity
• 2008 Silver: Martin Okrusch for research in the field of regional petrography
• 2007 Silver: Herbert Kroll for research into the understanding of the formation of mixed crystals, metric structure, thermodynamics, the synthesis and the order / disorder behavior of model minerals
• 2006 Silver Joachim Hoefs for work to understand the isotope geochemistry of hydrogen, lithium, carbon, oxygen and sulfur
• 2004 Silver: Friedrich Seifert ( Bayreuth) for his work on experimental and theoretical petrology and spectroscopy of minerals and silicate melts
• 2003 Ahmed El Goresy (Mainz) for mineralogy extraterrestrial rocks
• 2002 Volkmar Trommsdorff ( Zurich ) of Petrology, especially in the Alps
• 1999 Hans -Dietrich Maronde (Bonn) for services to the promotion of the mineralogical sciences as a professional speaker of the DFG, Heinrich Wänke (Mainz) for achievements in geochemistry and cosmochemistry
• 1998 David Headley Green ( Canberra) for achievements in Petrology
• 1997 Theo Hahn ( Aachen ) for his achievements in crystallography
• 1990 Friedrich Liebau
• 1987 Peter John Wyllie
• 1983 Karl Jasmund
• 1980 Wolf von Engelhardt
• 1977 Helmut G. F. Winkler, Theo Hahn
• 1973 Hatten S. Yoder
• 1970 Eduard Wenk
• 1964 Bruno Sander
• 1961 Alfred Lange

Works

• Of the external characteristics of the fossils, Leipzig 1774 ( digitized ) ( digitized, pdf 15.2 MB)
• Short classification and description of the various kinds of rock, Dresden 1787 ( digitized, pdf 16.7 MB, digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Notice of by him on disc Berger hill on the origin of basalt made ​​discovery of Freiberg 1788 ( digitized )
• Of the various degrees of strength of the rock as the main reason, the main differences of Häuerarbeiten, Freiberg 1788
• Attempt to explain the origin of volcanoes caused by the inflammation of powerful coal layers, as a Beytrag to the natural history of basalt, Zurich 1789 ( digitized )
• New theory of the origin of the transitions with application to the mining industry particularly the free- Berg, Freiberg 1791 ( digitized, pdf 12.8 MB)
• Detailed and systematic catalog of the minerals - Cabinet of the erstwhile electoral Saxon Mountain Main Mans Karl Eugen Pabst von Ohain, the Leipzig and the St. Petersburg Economic Society Mitgliede, and the royal Sardinian Society of Sciences in Tur, Freiberg / Annaberg 1791 ( digitized )
• Oryktognosie or user manual for lovers of Mineralogy, Leipzig 1792 ( digitized )

Gallery

Abraham Gottlob Werner

Birthing center

Werner Memorial in Freiberg

Plaque in Freiberg, Akademiestraße

Representation at the portal to the Werner - building in Freiberg

Memorial stone in front of the new Anne Cemetery in Dresden

Statue at the Palace of the University of Strasbourg