Alphonse François Renard

Alphonse- François Renard ( born September 27, 1842 in Ronse, † July 9, 1903 in Brussels) was a Belgian petrologist, mineralogist and geologist.

Renard began in Rome an intended career as a Catholic priest. 1866 to 1869 he was overseer at the Collège de la Paix in Namur. From 1870 he studied after entering the Order on the Jesuit school in Khajuraho philosophy and the natural sciences, where he became interested in the rocks of the surrounding Eifel. 1874-1882 ( resignation ) he was professor of chemistry and geology at the Jesuit College in Louvain. He was also curator at the Natural History Museum in Brussels. In 1888 he became professor of geology, mineralogy and paleontology at the University of Ghent, which he remained until his death. Although he was ordained a priest in 1877, but resigned in 1883 from the Jesuit Order. In 1901 he resigned from all of the Catholic Church.

In 1876 he published a book on the mineralogy and stratigraphy of igneous rocks of Belgium and the Ardennes with Charles Louis de la Vallée- Poussin. He dealt with metamorphic rocks, particularly in Belgium and with the geological analysis of the Challenger Expedition with John Murray ( published in the official report of the expedition, 1891). This resulted also insights into manganese nodules on the ocean floor, the formation of zeolitic crystals on the sea floor at temperatures around zero degrees Celsius or below, and the deposition cosmic dust.

In 1900 he published his textbook Notion de mineralogy.

He was an honorary member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1885 he was awarded the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London. A street in Ixelles district is named after him.

He was a member of the Masonic lodge Les Amis Philantropes.

In 1902 he married.