Gustaaf Adolf Frederik Molengraaff

Gustaaf Adolf Frederik Molengraaff ( born February 27, 1860 in Nijmegen, † March 26, 1942 in Wassenaar ) was a Dutch geologist who dealt with the geology of South Africa and a leading expert in his time for Indonesia's geology was.

Life

Molengraaff studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden and from 1882 Geology at the University of Utrecht. While still a student, he joined the expedition of WFR Suringar and K. Martin in the Netherlands Antilles and completed a doctorate on the geology of St. Eustatius. He then continued his studies in Munich, where he also explored the Alps. From 1888, he conducted research at the University of Amsterdam, where he taught full-time first geology - before passing the chemist Jacobus Henricus held van't Hoff geology lectures from. In 1891 he studied gold deposits in South Africa and 1894 he explored Borneo.

From 1897 he was state geologist in the Transvaal in South Africa and mapped there in the Karoo system of the Permian. He discovered there the Bushveld complex. During the Second Boer War in 1900, he had returned to the Netherlands and used the time for an expedition to Celebes. In 1901 he was back in South Africa as a consulting geologist, where he described the Cullinan Diamond, among others.

In 1906 he became a professor at the Technical University of Delft, where he found more suitable working conditions in terms of the number of students and research funds as opposed to Amsterdam. Molengraaff undertook from 1910 to 1911 an expedition to Timor, after which he and his students in Delft auswertete many years. With WAJM van Waterschoot van der Gracht (1873-1943), he also dealt with the geology of the Netherlands.

In 1927 he was one of the leaders in the Shaler Memorial Expedition of Harvard University in South Africa, where he met Alexander You Toit.

Molengraaf supported early continental drift hypothesis by Alfred Wegener, which he regarded as a good explanation for different geological aspects in South Africa and Indonesia. Among other things, to explain the Dwyka conglomerate ( in the lower Karoo system in the Transvaal ) as glacial Moränenbildung of the Permian. Particular, however, he found in the geology of Indonesia, both on land and submarine, evidence of continental drift and to in 1916 pleaded guilty to a publication. In 1920 he took these theses in a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in London. Molengraaf exchanged ideas about also with South African geologist Alexander du Toit and the researching in South Africa Americans Frederick E. Wright (1867-1953) and Reginald A. Daly ( 1871-1957 ).

Among his pupils was Hendrik Albertus Brouwer.