ISSN 1028-1533 International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences INHIGEO NEWSLETTER No. 41 for 2008 I Issued in 2009 I INHIGEO is A Commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences & An affiliate of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Sciences Compiled and Edited by Barry J. Cooper INHIGEO Secretary-General Edited in Adelaide and Printed in Sydney, Australia www.inhigeo.org 1 CONTENTS INHIGEO Newsletter No 41 (April 2009 regarding events in 2008) INHIGEO BOARD 3 REPORTS President’s Message: Silvia Figueirôa 3 Secretary-General’s Report: Barry Cooper 4 INHIGEO Annual Meeting for 2009 – Calgary, Canada 5 INHIGEO BUSINESS MEETINGS Minutes of 2008 INHIGEO Business Meeting, Oslo, Norway 7 Agenda INHIGEO Business Meeting Calgary, Canada, 13 August 2009 11 CONFERENCE REPORTS INHIGEO 2008 Oslo, Norway 12 SCAR History of Antarctic Research Action Group Conference, St Petersburg 2008 17 ARTICLE “On Granite, according to Johann W. Goethe” 18 AWARDS Prix Eugène Wegmann” to Martin Rudwick 19 OBITUARY Wolf von Engelhardt (1910-2008): Bernhard Fritscher 21 Goulven Laurent (1925–2008): Gabriel Gohau 21 Kenzo Yagi (1914-2008): Kanenori Suwa 23 INTERVIEW Interview with David Oldroyd, Oslo, Norway, 7–8 August 2008: Jiuchen Zhang 25 FORTHCOMING MEETINGS 37 BOOK REVIEWS Gian Battista Vai and William Cavazza (eds), Four Centuries of the Word Geology: Ulisse Aldrovandi 1603 in Bologna/Quadricentenario della parola geologia: Ulisse Aldrovandi 1603 Bologna , Minerva Edizioni, Bologna, 2004: David Oldroyd 40 Gian Battista Vai and W. Glen E. Caldwell, The Origins of Geology in Italy , The Geological Society of America, Special Paper 411, Boulder, 2006: David Oldroyd 40 Pietro Corsi, Fossils and Reputations . A Scientific Correspondence: Pisa, Paris, London, 1853-1857. Pisa, Edizioni Plus - Pisa University Press, 2008, 411 pp: Ezio Vaccari 47 Zoya A. Bessudnova, Geological Research at the Moscow University Natural History Museum, 1759–1930. Nauka, 2006, 246 pp. Moscow (in Russian): Anatoly Ryabukhin 48 2 Pascal Richet, A Natural History of Time, translated by John Venerella. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007, 471 p. Original publication: L’âge du monde: À la découverte de l’immensité du temps. Éditions du Seuil, 1999: Gregory Good 51 Zbigniew Wojcik, Stanislaw Staszic. Editor: Institute of Technology of Exploitation, Radom, 2008, pp.476 (in Polish, English summary): Wojciech Narebski 52 Andrzej J. Wojcik, West Mining District. The drafts from history of geological and mining activity in the Kingdom of Poland. Polish Academy of Sciences. Institute of History of Science, Warsaw 2008, pp.330 (in Polish, English summary): Zigniew Wojcik & Wojciech Narebski 52 Simon Nathan and Mary Varnham (eds), The Amazing World of James Hector , Awa Press, Wellington, 2008: David Oldroyd 53 Kristin Weidenbach, Rock Star: The Story of Reg Sprigg - An Outback Legend , East Street Publications, Hindmarsh, SA 5007, Australia: Barry Cooper 55 BOOK NOTICES 56 NOTES AND QUERIES 60 COUNTRY REPORTS Australia 62 Austria 66 Belarus 68 Bolivia 69 Brazil 70 Canada 71 China 76 Costa Rica 77 Czech Republic 80 France 81 Germany 81 Hungary 83 Ireland 84 Italy 85 Japan 86 Lithuania 87 Mexico 89 Netherlands 89 New Zealand 90 Poland 91 Portugal 92 Russia 94 Spain 96 United Kingdom 98 United States 100 Uzbekistan 103 Venezuela 106 HONORARY SENIOR MEMBERS 106 INHIGEO MEMBERSHIP 107 3 INHIGEO BOARD April 2009 President Vice-President North America Professor Silvia F. de M. FIGUEIRÔA Dr Gregory A. GOOD Instituto de Geociências Director, Center for History of Physics Universidade de Campinas C.P. 6152 American Institute of Physics 13083-970 Campinas 1 Physics Ellipse São Paulo College Park, MD 20740-3843 BRAZIL USA Tel: 55 19 3521-4553 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Vice-President Latin America Secretary-General Mr. Gerardo J. SOTO Dr Barry J. COOPER Apartado 360-2350 20 Royal Avenue San Francisco de Dos Rios Burnside SA 5066 San José, COSTA RICA AUSTRALIA Tel .: 506-280-0128 Tel : 61 8 8332 1846 Email : [email protected] Emails : [email protected] [email protected] Vice-President Asia Associate Professor Jiuchen ZHANG Past-President Institute for the History of Natural Science Professor Philippe R. TAQUET Academia Sinica Laboratoire de Paléontologie 137 Chao Nei Avenue 8, Rue Buffon Beijing 100010 Paris 75005, FRANCE CHINA Tel : 33-1-4079-3039 Tel: 86 10 8402 7627 Email : [email protected] Email: [email protected] [email protected] Vice-President Europe Dr. Martina KÖLBL-EBERT Vice-President Australasia and Oceania Jura-Museum Burgstrasse 19 Professor David OLDROYD D-85072 Eichstätt GERMANY 28 Cassandra Avenue Tel .: 49 (0) 8421 2956 St. Ives, Sydney NSW 2075, AUSTRALIA Email : [email protected] Tel .: 61 2 9449 5559 Email : [email protected] President’s Message (April 2009) Dear INHIGEO Members, old and new, Enjoy reading this Newsletter! It is a great pleasure for me to address a few words to all my colleagues from INHIGEO, for the first time after the election of the new Board in Oslo, Norway (August 5-14). As you can read in the following pages, our Commission continues to be very active and stronger each year. Besides new members, who came to contribute decisively to increase our level of expertise, both IUGS and IUPHS praised the work that INHIGEO has been doing in the past year. This is, of course, a reason for joy, but also reminds us of our present responsibility relatively to these institutions. On the side of IUGS, as Barry Cooper, the Secretary General has already informed you, our Commission was invited to take the task of producing a historical volume to celebrate its 50 th anniversary. 4 As regards the IUPHS, INHIGEO will be responsible for two specific and appealing symposia within the next International Congress of History of Science to be held in Budapest (July 28 – August 2). But the “cherry on the cake” is the INHIGEO Symposium in Calgary, Canada (DATA), organized by our Canadian colleagues, with George Pemberton in the frontline. Hope to meet many of you there!!! Silvia Figueirôa Secretary-General’s Report (April 2009) It is with great pleasure that I provide you with my first report as INHIGEO Secretary-General. I have been an INHIGEO member since 1989 but it is only by entrusting me with this responsibility that I am learning much more about the Commission’s very significant work. Before proceeding further, I must acknowledge the fine work of my predecessor Kennard Bork and his President, Philippe Taquet. They have left the Commission in excellent order with meetings firmly scheduled for the next four years, and with membership numbers standing currently at 217 members residing in 47 countries. I am also delighted to have Silvia Figueirôa as my President. Despite living on different and widely separated continents, with modern communications there is no problem for us jointly dealing with INHIGEO affairs in consultation with the newly elected INHIGEO Board, which has already been highly supportive. In 2008, INHIGEO members gathered at the 33 rd International Geological Congress in Oslo, Norway. Convenors Cornelia Lüedecke and Naja Mikkelsen organised an excellent series of presentations in a symposium entitled “History of exploration in the polar regions” while Jens Morten Hensen and David Oldroyd assembled an extensive series of papers under the banner of “General contributions to the history of geosciences”. In total there were 27 presentations and 8 posters in the INHIGEO symposia. Associated with the IGC, the Commission organised an excellent field trip to the Oslo Fjord, which was saddened only by the shock death, in Greenland, of our scheduled leader, Erik Schou Jensen, two weeks before the event. Please read Mike Johnson’s account of the IGC and associated field trip later in this newsletter as Mike has a wonderdful ability both to record the event and to convey the atmosphere of this occasion. During the same period, INHIGEO also held its Annual Business Meeting, the minutes of which are also provided in this newsletter. For our 2009 meeting, our Canadian colleagues, headed by George Pemberton, have invited us to Calgary, Alberta, in August. The conference will be organised under the twin themes of “The historical development of the petroleum industry” and “The discovery/development of major fossil sites” and arrangements are well advanced. A post conference field trip will visit the beautiful Canadian Rockies featuring the history of geological exploration in association with museums, scenery and a lot more. General costings and accommodation details have already been provided. Conference abstracts are due by 1 June. Registration details have been sent to all members separately. This promises to be an excellent opportunity to see spectacular scenery and experience the development of geology from different perspectives. I look forward to seeing many of you there. For 5-11 July 2010, our Spanish colleagues are already working diligently to plan an excellent meeting in the Madrid-Almadén-Iberian Pyritic Belt region around the theme: “History of the research of mineral resources”. In addition, there will be pre-conference and post conference field trips. Publication of proceedings will be facilitated by the Geological Survey of Spain. In 2011, INHIGEO will convene in Toyohashi, Japan, whilst in 2012, we will gather with the 34 th International Geological Congress in Brisbane, Australia. Preliminary discussions have already been held at the highest Government level regarding a 50 th anniversary meeting to be held in Yerevan, Armenia in 2017 as this would entail returning to our place of birth in 1967. INHIGEO will need to schedule conferences for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. Please contact me if you have any proposals that the Board can consider. I presume that the 2016 meeting will be held in Capetown, South Africa, following the decision to hold the 35 th IGC in that city.