Walter R. Gross

Walter Robert Gross ( born August 20, 1903 in Katlakalns, Governorate of Livonia (today to Riga, Latvia, belonging ), † June 9, 1974 in Tübingen ) was a German paleontologist and explorer of the early history of primitive " fish ".

Life

Walter Robert Gross was born the son of a German -born pastor in Katlakalns. 1907-1918 he lived with his parents in Straupe. From an early age he was interested for living things and was soon on fossils such as attention in Bach attachments homeland and they began to gather. At 18 he joined the Naturalists Club in Riga and made ​​contact to the Latvian Museum of Natural History.

After his military service Gross moved but study half to Germany and enrolled in zoology and paleontology in Marburg an der Lahn. In 1929 he continued his studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, after he had finally decided to paleontology. On the basis of his studies of the Devonian Asterolepis ( placoderms ) from the attachments of Gaujaflusses he received his doctorate in Berlin in 1931, remained at the university, was here in 1936 lecturers and 1943 for extraordinary items. Professor appointed. He worked mainly on Estonian and Latvian Placodermi and low Teleostomi, but was soon drafted into the Wehrmacht; he was captured and in 1946 went to Berlin, but in 1949 returned to the Humboldt University, where he now ord. Professor, Institute Director and Head of the Palaeontology Department of the Natural History Museum was.

After the construction of the wall, he remained with his wife Ursula and their three children - during a paleontologist Congress in Hamburg in August 1961 - in the Federal Republic of Germany and, on the recommendation Otto Schindewolf associate professor in Tübingen, where he became professor emeritus in 1969. Soon after, he was diagnosed with cancer, to which he succumbed in 1974.

Research fields

Gross's merit lies mainly in micropalaeontological area. Of the primitive " fish " are countless residues ( Ichthyolithen ) before, but usually only fragments (teeth, scales, spines, Dermalplatten ), rarely articulated skeletons (or at least large parts of it). However, it was also thanks to new preparation techniques, possible to establish phylogenetic series, ie the affinities of some about 400 million years old animals to brighten more and more.

Honors

He became an honorary member of the Paleontological Society in 1972. On his 70th birthday the now recognized as a world capacity researchers nor by a band (A 143) of the Palaeontographica ( where the majority of its approximately 90 publications had appeared ) was honored that contains only work on (especially Palaeozoic ) fossil fish. 1987, various activities were the occasion of a symposium in Beijing decided that will put Walter Gross' importance for the vertebrate paleontology and in general the contributions of his Baltic homeland for the Study of the evolution of primitive " fish " on the right light -. Grossius is a him named in honor fish taxon.

Publications (selection)

Comments

Literature on W. Gross

  • Ervīns Lukševičs (2002): Valteram Grosam - 100 Dabas un vestures kalendārs 2003 Rīga, Zinatne. . 212-219.
  • Ervīns Lukševičs and Ģirts Stinkulis (2004): Earth and Environment Sciences - The Second Gross Symposium "Advances of Palaeoichthyology " - Acta Universitatis Latviensis 679. 10-13.
  • Hans -Peter Schultze (1974 ): Obituary for Walter Robert Gross - Paläontol. . Z. 48: 143-148, 1 fig ( Portrait http://www.springerlink.com/content/3375754355018728/ )
  • Susan Turner (1988 ): International Palaeozoic microvertebrate correlation programs - Ichthyolith Issues 1: 2.
  • Paleontologist
  • University teachers ( Humboldt -Universität zu Berlin)
  • University teachers ( University of Tübingen )
  • Member of the Paleontological Society
  • Research Associate of the Museum of Natural History, Berlin
  • German
  • Latvian
  • Born in 1903
  • Died in 1974
  • Man
Drift (geology) Name Authority File
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