Christian Theodor Vaupell, a Danish 19th century naturalist and a pioneering developer of the Quaternary geoscience

History of Geo- and Space Sciences

J. K.Nielsen¹  S.Helama¹ 

DOI  :  10.5194/hgss-3-143-2012

学科分类：地球科学(综合)

来源: Copernicus Publications

【 摘 要 】

Christian Theodor Vaupell (1821–1862) was a Danish scholar withpioneering investigations particularly on the late Quaternary development ofbog forests, but also microscopy of plant anatomy and vegetativereproduction. His studies contributed to the early scientific thinking ofthe Quaternary environmental changes. Before his academic efforts, he hadalready survived the war between Prussia and Denmark albeit he becameseverely wounded and his left arm was amputated. The drama of his academicefforts, on the other hand, lies in the more or less suspicious dispute ofhis first doctoral thesis and his dismissal from the academic world duringthe following years. At the same time, he earned praise for his firstthesis (never accepted as thesis but published as a regular book) fromabroad; he was also able to attract private foundations for financial supportof his scientific work. Following the enthusiasm of his time, Vaupell becameattracted to the pine megafossils known to have been preserved in the bogs innorth-west Europe. The megafossils led him to study not only the lifesystems of the ancient and modern bog forests but also their associationswith Earth processes. As an interesting detail of his research, Vaupell madecompound interpretations on the occurrence of megafossil stumps and theirtree-ring growth patterns. In the course of the 20th century, Vaupell'sstudies have been cited as a general reference of post-glacial vegetationchange and plant succession rather than clearly pioneering investigations ofpalaeoecology, an angle that we would like put into a contrastingperspective. To do so, we provide a brief portrait of Christian Vaupell andhis research career. In conclusion, we wish to emphasize thecomprehensiveness of Vaupell's views on the late Quaternary vegetationchanges and the role of plant succession in that development.

【 授权许可】

Unknown