Ignaz Venetz

Ignaz Venetz ( born March 28, 1788 in Visperterminen, † April 20, 1859 in Sion ) was a Swiss engineer, botanist and glaciologist. He is considered one of the fathers of the Ice Age theory. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Venetz ".

Life and work

During his work as Canton Venetz engineer was concerned with the traces and effects of glaciers and was responsible for the attempts to prevent the fall of the glacier Giétrogletschers in 1818. In the course of his work, he made ​​the acquaintance of Jean -Pierre Perraudin (1767-1858) from Bagnes / Lourtier in Wallis, who developed the theory basis of his observations, that the glaciers in the Valais in prehistoric times had a far greater extent than today.

1821 Venetz wrote a work on the expansion of the traces of glaciers in the Swiss Valais as an award- winning contribution to the advertised by the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences in the " About the changes of temperature in the Swiss Alps ." He had become much attention outside the former glaciers spread to the prevalence of glacial traces The reference of Perraudin and his inquiries into this work and extended his investigations on the Upper Valais and the Swiss Mittelland. His collected observations were published in 1833 under the title " Mémoire sur les Variations de la température dans les Alpes de la Suisse ", seven years before Louis Agassiz his famous work " Etudes sur les glaciers " ( " studies of glacier " ) published. Together with Agassiz, Charpentier and Johann von Karl Friedrich Schimper applies Venetz as one of the founders of the Ice Age theory.