Émile Argand

Émile Argand (born 6 January 1879 in Eaux- Vives, Geneva today, † September 14, 1940 in Neuchâtel ) was a Swiss geologist and mineralogist. He is known for his study of the tectonics of the Alps and Asia. He was an early supporter of the theory of continental drift by Alfred Wegener.

Argand attended vocational school in Geneva and was later a draftsman in a construction company. In 1902 he took in Paris, where his mother lived (who was divorced from his father since 1887 ), the Abitur. He then studied medicine in Paris and Lausanne, but switched to geology in 1904, he studied at the University of Zurich with Maurice Lugeon at the University of Lausanne and at Arnold Heim and Ulrich Grubenmann. His first publication in 1905, Maurice Lugeon about the structure of Penninikums and thrust faults in Sicily. From his geological map of the Dent -Blanche massif from 1908 his dissertation ( 1909) was born. In 1912 he became professor of geology in Neuchâtel and additionally in 1928 professor of mineralogy. He published in 1911 maps of the structure of the Western Alps and the Penninikums and 1916 with an overall view of the formation of the Alps ( Sur l'arc des Alpes occidentales ). In 1924 he published his main work on the tectonics of Asia.

In 1913 he received the Spendiaroff Prize and the 1926 Marcel Benoist Prize ( for his book and the card tectonics of Asia).

Writings

• La Tectonique de l' Asie. In. Extrait du Compte rendu du - XIIIe géologique Congrès International 1922 ( Liège). 1, pp. 171-372.
• Sur l'arc of the Alps Occidentales. In: Eclogues geologicae Helveticae. Volume 15, Lausanne 1916, pp. 145-192.
• Les nappes de recouvrement des Alpes Pennines et leur prolongement structuraux. In: Contributions to the geological map of Switzerland. 31 Delivery, pp. 1-26.