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Eduard Suess ((:ˈeːduaʁt ˈzyːs); August 20, 1831 – April 26, 1914) was an Austrian geologist who was an expert on the geography of the Alps. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and the Tethys Ocean. ==Biography== Eduard Suess was born on August 20, 1831, in London, England, the oldest son of Adolph Suess, a Lutheran Saxon merchant, and Eleonore Zdekauer. When he was three, his family relocated to Prague, and then to Vienna when he was 14. He became interested in geology at a young age. While working as an assistant at the Hofmuseum in Vienna, he published his first paper—on the geology of Carlsbad (in present-day Czech Republic)—when he was 19. In 1855, Suess married Hermine Strauss, the daughter of a prominent physician from Prague. Their marriage produced five sons and one daughter.〔 In 1856, he was appointed professor of paleontology at the University of Vienna, and in 1861 was appointed professor of geology. He gradually developed views on the connection between Africa and Europe. Eventually, he concluded that the Alps to the north were once at the bottom of an ocean, of which the Mediterranean was a remnant. Suess was not correct in his analysis, which was predicated upon the notion of "contractionism"—the idea that the Earth is cooling down and, therefore, contracting. Nevertheless, he is credited with postulating the earlier existence of the Tethys Ocean, which he named in 1893.〔Edward Suess (March 1893) ("Are ocean depths permanent?," ) ''Natural Science: A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress'' (London), 2 : 180- 187. From page 183: "This ocean we designate by the name "Tethys," after the sister and consort of Oceanus. The latest successor of the Tethyan Sea is the present Mediterranean."〕 He claimed in 1885 that land bridges had connected South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica. He named this ancient broken continent Gondwanaland.〔Eduard Suess, ''Das Antlitz der Erde'' (The Face of the Earth), vol. 1 (Leipzig, Germany: G. Freytag, 1885), (page 768. ) From p. 768: ''"Wir nemen es Gondwána-Land, nach der gemeinsamen alten Gondwána-Flora, … "'' (We name it Gondwána-Land, after the common ancient flora of Gondwána … )〕 Suess published a comprehensive synthesis of his ideas between 1885 and 1901 titled ''Das Antlitz der Erde'' (''The Face of the Earth''), which was a popular textbook for many years. In volume two of this massive three-volume work,〔Suess, Eduard (1885-1909). ''Das Antlitz der Erde''. F. Tempsky, Vienna, , Note: volume 3 was published in two parts.〕 Suess set out his belief that across geologic time, the rise and fall of sea levels were mappable across the earth—that is, that the periods of ocean transgression and regression were correlateable from one continent to another. His theory was based upon glossopteris fern fossils occurring in South America, Africa, and India. His explanation was that the three lands were once connected in a supercontinent, which he named Gondwanaland. Again, this is not quite correct: Suess believed that the oceans flooded the spaces currently between those lands. In his work ''Das Antlitz der Erde'', Suess also introduced the concept of the biosphere, which was later extended by Vladimir I. Vernadsky in 1926.〔Smil, Vaclav. 2002. The earth's biosphere : evolution, dynamics, and change. MIT.〕 Suess wrote: He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1895. He received the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1896 and he won the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1903. Suess died on April 26, 1914, in Vienna. He is buried in the town of Marz in Burgenland, Austria. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eduard Suess」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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