Ferdinand Zirkel

Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist Prof Ferdinand Zirkel FRS(For) HFRSE (20 May 1838Template:Snd11 June 1912) was a German geologist and petrographer.

Biography

File:Ferdinand Zirkel, 1899 - Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 0104 B.jpg

Ferdinand Zirkel, 1899

Zirkel was born in Bonn. Educated in his native town, he graduated PhD from the University of Bonn in 1861.<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |

   |{{#ifeq: Zirkel, Ferdinand |
                |{{#ifeq: |
                             |
                             |
                           }}
                |
               }}
  }}{{#ifeq:  |
   |{{#ifeq: 1 |
                                    |This article
                                    |One or more of the preceding sentences
                                   }} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
  }}{{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite EB1911
   |_exclude=footnote, inline, noicon, no-icon, noprescript, no-prescript, _debug

   | noicon=1
  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}</ref> His training and initial interest was in mining.  In 1860 he traveled to Iceland with William Thierry Preyer, and in 1862 they published Reise nach Island im Sommer 1860.

After graduation, Zirkel was engaged in teaching geology and mineralogy in Vienna at the Geological Institution. His journey to Iceland, along with travels to the Faeroe Islands, Scotland and England, and a meeting with Henry Clifton Sorby, led him from mining to the study of microscopical petrography, then a comparatively new science.<ref name="EB1922">Template:EB1922</ref>

He became professor of geology in 1863 in the University of Lemberg, in 1868 at the University of Kiel, and in 1870 was made professor of mineralogy and geology in the University of Leipzig.<ref name="EB1911"/> He traveled for study in France, Italy, and Scotland; came to the United States in 1874 to examine the great collections of minerals made during the exploration of the fortieth degree of latitude. He was elected to honorary membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 17 April 1888 <ref>MEMOIRS AND PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. MEMOIRS.) Volume LII. (1907-8 </ref> and in 1894-95 pursued scientific investigations in Ceylon and India.

He retired in 1909. He was an honorary D.Sc. of Oxford University, and also a foreign member of the Royal Society and an honorary member of the Mineralogical Society.<ref name="EB1922"/>

Publications

His numerous papers and essays include Geologische Skizze van der Westküste Schottlands (1871); Die Struktur der Variolite (1875); Microscopical Petrography (in Report of U.S. Geol. Exploration of 40th Par., vol. vi., 1876); Limurit aus der Vallée de Lesponne (1879); Über den Zirkon (1880). His separate works include Lehrbuch der Petrographie (1866; 2nd ed. 1893, 1894); Die mikroskopische Beschaffenheit der Mineralien und Gesteine (1873);<ref name="EB1911"/> and Über Urausscheidungen rheinischer Basalte (1893).

File:Seffner Zirkel Bonn.jpg

Bronze medallion by Carl Seffner at the Alter Friedhof, Bonn

Recognition

• Mount Zirkel in the Park Range of Colorado, USA, is named after him.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The mineral zirkelite is named after him.
• Dorsum Zirkel on the Moon is named after him.

References

• Template:Cite NIE

External links

• Reise nach Island im Sommer 1860, mit wissenschaftlichen Anhängen, F. A. Brockhaus, 1862 at Google Books.
• Template:Find a Grave