Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon - A Women Geoscientist In The Dolomites

The Scottish Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon (1864-1939), or May as she was called, was the oldest daughter of a pastoral family composed of eight children, five boys and three girls. Maria Ogilvie entered Merchant Company Schools' Ladies College in Edinburgh at the age of nine. Already in these early years, she showed a profound interest in nature. During holidays she enjoyed exploring the landscape of the Scottish Highlands accompanied by her elder brother, the later geologist Sir Francis Ogilvie. Maria Ogilvie aspired to become a musician and at age of eighteen she went to London to study music, becoming a promising pianist, but already in the first year her interests into the natural world prevailed and she went for a career in science.

Studying both in London and Edinburgh she obtained her degree in geology, botany and zoology in 1890. Maria Ogilvie hoped to follow-up their studies in Germany, but in 1891, despite a recommendation even by the famous geologist Baron Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (pioneer geologist of the Dolomites), she was rejected at the University of Berlin - women were still not permitted to enroll for higher education in England and Germany. She went to Munich, where she was welcomed friendly by eminent paleontologist Karl von Zittel (1839-1904) and zoologist Richard von Hertwig (1850-1927). However, she was not allowed to join male students. Sitting in a separate room she listened through the half-open doors to the lectures.

In July 1891, Richthofen invited her to join a five-week trip to the nearby Dolomites Mountains, visiting the Gröden-Valley. From the very first day, Maria Ogilvie was immensely impressed by the landscape and learned rock climbing to better explore the mountains. Richthofen introduced Maria Ogilvie to alpine geology and they visited the pastures of Stuores in the Gader-Valley. At the time Maria Ogilvie was studying modern corals to become a zoologist, but Richthofen, showing her the beautifully preserved fossil corals found here in the Triassic sediments, convinced her to become rather a geologist.

The pastures of Stuores in the Gader-Valley with outcrops of Triassic marl.

Richthofen was over sixty years old and therefore he couldn't provide much support in the field. Maria Ogilvie remembers later the challenge and danger of field work, sometimes accompanied by a local rock climber named Josef Kostner:

"When I began my fieldwork, I was not under the eye of any Professor. There was no one to include me in his official round of visits among the young geologists in the field, and to subject my maps and sections to tough criticism on the ground. The lack of supervision at the outset was undoubtedly a serious handicap."

For two summers she hiked, climbed and studied various areas in the Dolomites and instructed local collectors to carefully record and describe their fossil sites. In 1893 she published "Contributions to the geology of the Wengen and St. Cassian Strata in southern Tyrol". In the paper she included detailed figures of the landscape, geological maps and stratigraphic charts of the Dolomites, establishing fossil marker horizons and describing the ecology of various fossil corals associations. She described 345 species from the today 1,400 known species of mollusks and corals of the local Wengen- and St. Cassian-Formations.
The published paper, a summary of her thesis "The geology of the Wengen and Saint Cassian Strata in southern Tyrol", finally earned her respect by the scientific community. In 1893 she became the first female doctor of science in the United Kingdom. The same year she returned into the Dolomites to continue with her geological and paleontological research. In 1894 she published the important "Coral in the Dolomites of South Tyrol." Maria Ogilvie argued that the systematic classification of corals must be based on microscopic examination and characteristics, not as usually done at the time, on superficial similarities.

Fossil corals from the pastures of Stuores, plate from LAUBE (1865).

In 1895 she returned to Aberdeen, where she married a longstanding admirer. Dr. John Gordon respected and encouraged her passion for the Dolomites. He and their four children accompanied Maria Ogilvie on various excursions into the Dolomites.

In 1900 she returned to Munich, becoming the first woman to obtain a Ph.D. She helped her old mentor, paleontologist von Zittel, to translate his extensive German research on the "Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie" - "The History of Geology and Palaeontology."

Maria Ogilvie continued her studies and continued to publish. In 1913 she was preparing another important work about the geology and geomorphology of the Dolomites, to be published in Germany, but in 1914 with the onset of World War I. and the death of the publisher, the finished maps, plates and manuscripts were lost in the general chaos.
In 1922 she returned into the Dolomites, where she encountered the young paleontologist Julius Pia, who, during the war, had carried out research in the Dolomites. Together they explored many times the Dolomites.

Landscape profile of the Langkofel-massif after GORDON & PIA (1939): Zur Geologie der Langkofelgruppe in den Südtiroler Dolomiten. Maria Matilda included hand-drawn sketches in her research.

Apart from scientific papers, Maria Matilda published also one of the first examples of geological guide books for the Dolomites. To honor her contributions to earth sciences in 2000 a new fossil fern genus, discovered in Triassic sediments, was named Gordonopteris lorigae.

Interested in reading more? Try:

WACHTLER, M. & BUREK, C.V. (2007): Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon (1864-1939): a Scottish researcher in the Alps. In BUREK, C. V. & HIGGS, B. (eds): The Role of Women in the History of Geology. Geological Society: 305-317

How WWI Bombs Shattered Bedrock And Changed Geological History

The war in Europe began as a battle between infantry and cavalry, like in old times, and was believed to be quickly over. However, new weapons, like the machine-gun or heavy artillery, made direct attacks almost impossible as soldiers were killed in their thousands. The war quickly became a war of attrition as both sides dug in in a network of trenches and tunnels separated by the “No Man’s Land.” One hundred years after the end of World War I traces can be still found in the landscape.

Alpine Tsunami

Strange as it may seem,  also high in the mountains there is a tsunami risk.

In the Alps, various event can trigger a tsunami, like earthquakes, landslides or glacial lake outbursts. The 1806 tsunami of Lake Lauerzer (Switzerland) was caused by a large landslide and killed almost 500 people. 

Painting of the 1806 tsunami of Lake Lauerz made by David Alois Schmid, who observed the disaster from his hometown Schwyz.

In September 1601 an earthquake hit the area of Lake Lucerne. The 5.9 magnitude earthquake triggered both an underwater landslide as a rockfall from the nearby Bürgenstock mountain. The resulting wave was almost four meters high and inundated  "a thousand steps" (50 to 100 meters) broad area around the lake. Eight people were killed.  In 1867 a second wave caused widespread destruction.  As no earthquake was recorded before the tsunami, experts believe that the collapse of lake sediments and an underwater landslide caused the wave. 

In October 1963 the entire slope of Mount Toc in the Italian Dolomites collapsed. Within 30 to 40 seconds estimated 240 to 270 million cubic meters of rock plunged into the reservoir of Vajont, filling the 400 meters deep gorge behind the dam. The wave generated by the impact of the landslide traveled 140 meters up on the opposite shore, reaching some buildings of the village of Erto. At the moment of the impact,the reservoir contained 115 million cubic meters of water. The landslide pushed part of the water out of the lake, producing a wave with a maximal height of 230 to 240 meters. 

A 100 to 150 meters high wave rushed into the gorge of the Vajont, in direction of the larger and inhabited Piave valley. There the wave destroyed the villages of Longarone, Pirago, Villanova, Rivalta and Fae, and in less than 15 minutes more than 2,000 people were killed.

Glacier outburst floods (GOF) refer to the rapid and sudden discharge of water from within a glacier or from an ice-dammed lake. In the Alps and Cascades most outburst floods occur in the summer, when the melting glaciers provide large quantities of water. In the Andes and the Himalaya also another type of floods is common, outbursts from moraine-dammed lakes, referred to as glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). Floods resulting from moraine-dam failure have been increasing in frequency in the Himalaya over the past 70 years. One of the best-documented examples happened in August 1985, when the terminus of the Langmoche Glacier in the Khumbu Himal collapsed into the Dig Tsho glacial lake, triggering a wave overflowing the moraine. The wave destroyed a power plant and five people were killed.

Laguna Paron (Cordillera Blanca, Peru) in 2009, a lake dammed by the glacier Hatunraju with a capacity of 75 million cubic meters. The lake is surrounded by a 250 meters high moraine.  If this dam fails an outburst of around 50 million cubic meters could flood the valleys downstream.
The worst glacial lake outburst in historic time was caused by the failure of such a moraine-dam in Peru, when in December 1941 the town of Huaraz was partially destroyed by a flood, 60.000 people were killed.

The Early Exploration and Geology of the Chamois Mountains

„Su le dentate scintillanti vette, 
salta il camoscio, 
tuona la valanga da' ghiacci immani
rotolando per le selve scroscianti; 
ma da i silenzi de l'effuso azzurro esce nel sole l'aquila,
e distende in tarde ruote digradanti il nero volo solenne.“
Giosuè Carducci (1835-1907)

In medieval times the Alps, especially the alpine regions above the tree line, were simply referred as Gamsgebirg - the chamois mountains.

Fig.1. The Livre de chasse is a medieval book on hunting, written between 1387 and 1391 by Gaston III, Count of Foix and dedicated to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. One figure shows an alpine hunt with ibex and chamois hiding between the peaks.

Only, as a guide from 1917 describes, fools would venture there. However the Alps since ancient times were a traveled region. Shepherds, merchants, collectors of plants and minerals and hunters populated the valleys, high-altitude pastures and maybe sometimes also climbed a peak.
The first person to climb a mountain just "because it´s there" was supposedly Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), as he describes an ascent on Mount Ventoux in France. 

Italian author Valerius Faventies in 1561 publishes “De montium origine”, wherein he collects all the contemporary theories explaining the formation of mountains. An important role was given to celestial influences. But only later authors like cartographer Sebastian Münster (1489-1552), cartographer Johannes Stumpf (1500-1566),  naturalist Konrad Gessner (1516-1565)  and especially naturalist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733) describe mountains in great details, including plants, animals and the geology.

Fig.2. The chamois in Konrad Gessner´s „Allgemeines Thierbuch“ (1565).

Scheuchzer used examples of large-scale folds observed in the Swiss Alps as evidence for the veracity of the Biblical account of a flood in remote times. Only a large flood, a deluge, could twist, break and fold the sedimentary rocks.

Fig.3. "Views of Chamonix, as seen [during the expedition] in 1742", apart glaciers the drawing shows also typical animals, like the ibex, the chamois and the marmot. Figure from a report to the Royal Society in London by William Windham.

Also English theologian and naturalist Thomas Burnet in his book “The Sacred Theory of the Earth“, published in 1684, tries to explain the mountains and shapes of the continents by the biblical flood. The homogenous primordial crust of earth was shattered, releasing water from the underground. The water covers the entire planet and finally flows back in the fissures, leaving behind fragments of the crust that now forms the modern islands and continents. Mountains, so Burnet, were fragments of the primordial crust of earth stacked atop, ruins of the former perfect paradisic world.

Fig.4. The chamois hunter's hunting ground, by Johann Baptist Zwecker (1814–1876).

Still for a long time the Alps were seen as haunted, dangerous and most important unholy territory. One there was "in company of the devil,..." as Swiss naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799) refers to the chamois when writing about the Alps. De Saussure was also the first naturalist to describe the geology of one of the highest peaks in the Alps (mostly composed of granite), the 4,808.73m high Mont Blanc, climbed by his expedition in July 1789.

Interested in reading more? Try: 

BEATTIE, A. (2006): The Alps: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press: 246
BRIDLE, B. (2011): Mountaineers. Royal Geographical Society,The Alpine Club: 359
MacFARLANE, R. (2003): Mountains of the Mind - Adevntures in Reaching the Summit. Random House Publishing, New York: 324

An advice for the prospecting geologist from 1731 - observe the water

“The miner needs in his art to have the most experience, so that he knows the place, the mountain or the hill, the valley or the field, that can be mined with success, and to avoid to dig were nothing can be gained.”
from Agricola, "Zwölf Bücher vom Berg- und Hüttenwesen", I. Buch (1549)

Georg Grandtegger was a mine inspector in the Prettauer mine (Tyrol) who published in 1731 a field guide to find ore. Some of his suggestions may be useful even today, so he writes:
 

"The water of a spring must be tasted for the dissolved substances in it"
 

It is true that minerals like salt, sulfur and some metallic ores are water-soluble and can alter the taste and smell of water. Water saturated with metals can also precipitate new minerals (mostly oxides and hydroxides) in a river, like reddish-brown sediments when saturated with iron or greenish crusts when saturated with copper.
 

So Grandtegger continues:

"The brand [a term referring to color-alteration of the rock] comes from an ore along the creek. Follow it as long as you see it, then you will find the ore.”
"If you find in fountains [read springs], feed by the mountain, many reddish, bluish or black stones, or even colored green, even if the rocks itself have no ore, so flows the water out from veins of ore."
 

Fig.1. A spring, the mud around is colored by iron-oxides and -hydroxides, a clue that in the underground there is ore-rich schist to be found.

Grandtegger correctly suggest that a prospecting geologist should observe carefully if rocks are colored by precipitations of metals in a river. If so the geologist can follow the river until the spring. The source of the dissolved metals will likely to be found here in the underground. 

Fig.2. The reddish colors of the pebbles in this creek suggest the presence of iron and copper. Sometimes even the name of certain localities can help the prospecting geologist, like here, as this small creek is found in the “red valley”.

A last important observation, as dissolved copper is poisonous for animals and plants, rivers flowing in copper-rich rocks will likely show a diminished presence of insects and fish – so it may be a good idea to ask local fishermen about spots were they don´t get to catch anything, it may be the right spot for the geologist.

Geological Prospecting Following The Tales Of Haunted Mines

Myths were already used to reconstruct the geological risk of certain areas and may also be of interest for prospecting geologists. Still many modern localities bear names associated to past mining operations, precious metals or ore. A lateral valley of the South Tyrolean Ahrntal is known as Röttal, “Röt" meaning red and named after the reddish rocks found there. These rocks are ore-rich greenschists, the reddish colors caused by alteration and weathering over time of iron- and sulfur-minerals (often associated with more valuable minerals). Probably this and other geological clues (like rivers poisoned by traces of copper and poor plant growth) helped once to discover the copper deposits deep within the mountain. 

 

Fig.1. View of a small creek in the "red" valley.

According to a local legend the nearby mine of Prettau was discovered when a wild bull throw some large rocks into the air. The owner of the animal noted some shiny minerals inside the rocks and even if not gold, so he had found a rich deposit of copper- and iron sulfides. Maybe this legend reflects the idea of using such well visible geological clues, like minerals or alteration products, do discover the hidden treasures of a mountain.

Mining for metals in the Alps dates back at least for 4.800 years (a 25m long gallery in North Tyrol was dated to 2.800 B.C.), in South Tyrol slag remains were dated to 1.200-1.000 BC for sure. Slag remains found in Ahrntal possibly date back to the early and middle bronze age (3.300-1.800 BC), even if the provenance of the used copper ore is unknown. The extraction of copper ore in the Ahrntal became important only in medieval times, especially in the 15th century. 

Fig.2. Medieval prospecting pit in ore-bearing greenschists (prasinitic) rocks.

So it´s interesting to note that some galleries found in the Ahrntal are, according to local folklore, associated to the Roman dominion. The galleries excavated in gneiss are not especially deep, the longest recorded is just 40m. It´s for sure only superficial prospecting, soon abandoned.

Fig.3. A supposedly haunted pit, entrance to a short gallery excavated into the weathered grey gneiss, in yellow alteration rim.

In local folklore the galleries are called “antrischen Löcher”, "antrisch" an old term to describe something spooky or haunted and "Löcher" simply meaning hole. The antrischen Löcher were inhabited, so the legend tells, by descendants of the first man and women. However as Adam and Eve tried to hide their illegitimate children before god, they now are damned to live in the underground. They are the guardians of underground treasures and eventually will donate the hidden treasures to good people, if they deserve such gifts.

According to historic archives some galleries date back for sure to the year 1530, when a mister Franz Widmair requested permission to prospect for ore in this area. Mines dating back to Roman times are a possibility, even if highly unlikely, as there exists no written record or artifact made of the extracted ore to prove Roman mining operations.

Folklore also tells of silver-veins, even if the petrological composition of the rocks would suggest copper. The found ore is anyway of no economic value nowadays.

Now even if geology contradicts some speculations based solely on local tales (like the galleries dating back 2.000 years and the search for silver), it´s nevertheless interesting to note that without the legends surrounding these artificial galleries and pits these would have probably soon be forgotten. By following and evaluating tales provided by locals a geologist may discover some interesting additional information to include in a geological map, be it abandoned mines, quarries or minerals- and ore-associations. 

The Four Layers of Earth

In a letter dated to March 30, 1759 the Italian mining engineer Giovanni Arduino (1714-1795) proposed to the physician and fossil collector Prof. Antonio Vallisnieri the subdivision of earth’s crust in various types, or layers, of rocks.

Based on his observations along the foothills of the Alps, Arduino recognized a stratigraphic column with four rock-layers: unstratified or poorly stratified crystalline rocks (or “Primary Rocks“, survived into the 20th century as “Paleozoic“ epoch), stratified rocks (“Secondary Rocks“, or “Mesozoic“), more recent, as yet unconsolidated, sediments (“Tertiary Rocks“) and finally all volcanic rocks.

Arduino used a section of rocks exposed in the Val d´Agno to explain his classification scheme. The numbers refer to the thickness of the strata, the letters to the description in the accompanying text. The extremely tattered state of the original drawing suggests that Arduino demonstrated it repeatedly to the many naturalists who visited him.

Bibliography:

VAI, G.B. (2007): A history of chronostratigraphy. Stratigraphy Vol.4 No. 2/3: 83-97

Bailey Willis - The Man who made Mountains

U.S.G.S. engineer Bailey Willis († February 19, 1949) was known for his unorthodox approach to geological questions. Puzzled by the geological structures he discovered in mountain ranges, long before computer-models were available, he constructed a machine to simulate the mountain-forming process.

In a box with a moveable piston he folded and crushed layers of beeswax and compared the structures with the large tectonic folds and thrusts he had mapped in the Appalachian Mountains. He realized that folds and nappes could form also by horizontal movements and compressive forces – not, as still many geologists argued, only by vertical movements.

Fig.1. Willis´”Compression Machine for Experiments”  from “The Mechanics of Appalachian Structure” (1891).

Fig.2. Miniature mountains made by the “compression machine” – the strata first form regular folds, however as the shortening continues, shear zones develop and single “tectonic nappes” start to pile up.

Fig.3. Folded strata in the central Appalachian Mountains. In later years Willis proposed a first version of plate tectonics to explain mountain formation processes – the Atlantic Ocean was formed when a “bubble” of magma pushed apart the American and European continents, along the borders the layers of rocks were compressed and folded up – the Appalachian Mountains formed. Unfortunately this mountain range is significantly older than the Atlantic…

Fig.4. Willis subdivided mountain ranges in a central zone, characterized by folds, and an outer zone, characterized by shear zones (geological map of Cleveland in Tennessee). Today we know that the conformation can be much more complicated than that.

January 11, 1771: The Birthday of Lake Alleghe

The lake of Alleghe in the valley of Cordévole is today exactly 244 years old. The "birthday" of this lake is well known, at 7:02 in the morning of January 11, 1771 the river flowing through the valley became dammed by a landslide coming from the mountain Piz.

Fig.1. General view of the valley of Cordévole with the village and lake of Alleghe. On the right, on the mountain Piz, the scar of the landslide is barely visible in the forest, in the background the Civetta (3.220m).

The Alps-traveler Belsazar Hacquet (1739-1815) remembers a visit to the lake in 1780:

“The river Cordévole became my guide, by following him I would find the valley of Cadore. But only after some hundred steps the river was flowing in a large lake, existing here only for the last nine years. I walked around in eastern direction, to the villages of Sternade and Saviner until the mountain of Piz. First the lake was narrow, only by Saviner it became more than 100 venetian fathom [an old length unit used in the mining industry of these times, one fathom ca.1,8m] broad and more than thirty deep. The last mentioned village once was situated on a hill, before it in a broad valley there were four smaller villages…[]…which became flooded by the lake, but the fourth locality, named Marin, was buried with the village of Riete under the collapse of the mountain of Piz, last mentioned village situated previously on the top of the mountain.” Standing on the top of the mountain, I immediately noted that the mountain has a volcano on top of it, and it was possible to see how deep it went. After the mountain collapsed, it could be seen that its base was composed of limestone, build up by mighty layers, dipping from the west to the east with 45 degrees. The surface of the collapse is so smooth, that a man has difficulties to climb on it to the mountain.“

 

Fig.2. Historic depiction of the landslide-lake in the “Atlas Tyrolensis” of 1774 by Tyrolean cartographers Peter Anich and Blasius Hueber. Note the landslide-boulders on the southern shore of the lake, Anich and Hueber were one of the first cartographers to use signatures to display geomorphologic features in their maps (image in public domain).

The strange notion by Hacquet of an active volcano in the Dolomites in very recent times is based maybe on his discovery of volcanic rocks in the area, however – as we today know – these deposits are more than 235 million years old. At the time of Hacquet’s geologic investigation volcanic forces were also believed to cause strong and sudden movements of the terrestrial surface, effects that maybe could also explain a sudden disaster, like a landslide. Also notable how Hacquet describes the surface where the landslide “slipped away”.

Fig.3. Detail of the modern geological map (Carta Geologica delle Tre Venezie, Foglio 12 "Pieve di Cadore", 1940) showing the village and the landslide of Alleghe (with the lake in the lower part of the map) and the dammed lake.

The detachment area of the landslide is composed by Anisian dolostone (Contrin-fm) overlying limestone - layers and marls of the Ladinian (St. Kassian-fm).

 Lithology: pink = Anisian dolostone (Contrin-fm), blue= Anisian dolostone, lower succession (Moena-fm), brown= marls with bedded limestone-layers (St. Kassian-Formation).

Detail of the geological map (Carta Geologica delle Tre Venezie, Foglio 12 "Pieve di Cadore", 1940) showing the village and the landslide of Alleghe (with the lake in the lower part of the map) and the dammed lake, lithology: pink = Anisian dolostone (Contrin-fm), blue= Anisian dolostone, lower succession (Moena-fm), brown= marls with bedded limestone-layers (St. Kassian-Formation). - See more at: http://historyofgeology.fieldofscience.com/2011/01/11-january-1771-landslide-of-alleghe.html#sthash.3iyCIGcp.dpuf

The landslide of Alleghe killed 48 people and destroyed parts of the village of Riete and some farms. The landslide-lake inundated the village of Peron, only in February 1771 a new outflow formed and stabilized the lake level.

Bibliography:

HÖFLER, H. & WITT, G. (2010): Katastrophen am Berg – Tragödien der Alpingeschichte. Bruckmann Verlag: 144

January 6, 1912: Happy Birthday Continental Drift!

January 6, 1912 the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener presented in a lecture entitled “Die Heraushebung der Großformen der Erdrinde (Kontinente und Ozeane) auf geophysikalischer Grundlage” (The uprising of large features of earth’s crust (Continents and Oceans) on geophysical basis) for the first time his hypothesis of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea, from which all modern continents split apart.
Three years later he will publish his book “Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane“, translated in the third edition and published in 1922 as “The origin of continents and oceans.”
 

Wegener didn’t propose something completely new; as he based his idea on earlier observations and suggestions, but his work started a fierce discussion in the scientific community.

  

In 1889 and 1909 the Italian musician and naturalist Roberto Mantovani published a hypothesis based on his observations on the volcanic island of Réunion: cracks forming during volcanic eruptions could separate even large parts of an island, could it then be possible that entire continents split apart? Mantovani collected various evidence and published maps to show the shape of the hypothetical former continents (Wegener will use these maps to support his idea), however he explained the driving force behind the breakup of former large continents by the slow expansion of the earth.
 

In 1908 the self-educated geologist Frank B. Taylor proposed that the crust of earth was influenced by tidal forces of the moon and the continents were pulled apart in some regions and pushed together in other areas, forming folds like a carpet. However the involved forces were to weak and his explanation wasn’t deemed plausible. The Austrian geologist Otto Ampferer speculated in 1906 that the Alps were formed by folding of the upper crust, as driving force he proposed magma sinking into the mantle and pulling pieces of crust downwards (!). This “Unterströmungstheorie (also Subfluenztheorie)” lacked however a convincing source of energy and couldn’t explain all aspects of the genesis of the Alps, as it implied only pulling and not compressive forces needed to form folds and faults.

Wegener became interested in the idea of a single continent in 1910 by observing an atlas and noting the coasts of the Africa and South American. Some time later he read a paleontological paper discussing the similarities of terrestrial fossils between separated continents.
 
Wegener continued to collect various published evidence to support his theory of a single continent:
- Like a puzzle also the outlines of continents (especially the continental shelves) seem to fit together.
- There are various geomorphologic and geological similarities along the coasts of South America-Africa and Europe-North America.
- Fossil of land vertebrates and plants can be found on different continents, separated today by large oceans.
- Fossil evidence of ancient climates, today without a recognizable pattern, will form climate zones when the continents are put together.

Wegner considered the prevailing explanation for the patterns in the fossil record as impossible: ancient land bridges that connected continents and habitats (like the Isthmus of Panama today) were composed of light continental granitic crust, such pieces of less dense rocks couldn’t simply sink into the much denser oceanic basalts and disappear without trace.

He will explain in 1911 his idea in a letter to his father-in-law, Professor Wladimir Peter Köppen:

“You consider my primordial continent to be a figment of my imagination, but it is only a question of the interpretation of observations. I came to the idea on the grounds of the matching coastlines, but the proof must come from the geological observations.
These compel us to infer, for example, a land connection between South America and Africa. This can be explained in two ways: the sinking of a connecting continent or separation. Previously, because of the unproven concept of permanence, people have considered only the former and have ignored the latter possibility. But the modern teaching of isostasy and more generally our current geophysical ideas oppose the sinking of a continent because it is lighter than the material on which it rests. Thus we are forced to consider the alternative interpretation. And if we now find many surprising simplifications and can begin at last to make real sense of an entire mass of geological data, why should we delay in throwing the old concept overboard?“

 

  

Wegener hypothesis of continental drift (a catchy phrase adopted mainly by the critics, as Wegener talks more general of “displacement theory“) was received with mixed feelings. Most geologists regarded it as cherry-picking of anecdotes from the literature. However some geologist with field experience, especially in Africa and South-America, became soon convinced of this possibility.

Like Taylor also Wegener could not explain the forces necessary to move the continents in the crust. Wegener imagined that continents - like gigantic ice floes - swim on and are surrounded by the much denser oceanic crust.  He proposed gravitational pull, tidal and centrifugal forces, but the English geophysicist Harold Jeffreys demonstrated that these forces are much too weak or if strong enough, had to stop first earth’s rotation.
 
Wegner himself reacted to the critics and tried to respond to them in various editions of his books, however with moderate success. The greatest problem remained the lack of direct evidence for the movements of continents and the needed explanation for the mechanism and also the large amount of energy needed to move and deform rocks. Most importantly Wegener considered his work as starting point and stimulus for other or even future scientists, a message that wasn’t fully understand at his time.

 

Fig.1. – 3. “Eppur si muove!” Reconstruction of the former supercontinent of Pangaea and the subsequent breakup in various smaller continents from the Carboniferous to the Quaternary. From WEGENER, A. (1929): Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane. 4th ed.

Wegener will die in 1930. His continental drift hypothesis is in many aspects erroneous: not the single continents move but entire plates of the crust and the driving force comes from within the planet, not from outside. However his most important legacy is to have introduced the idea of moving continents to the scientific community and the public (even Lovecraft will became inspired by Wegener’s writings) – decades later this legacy will influence a new kind of theory: Plate Tectonics.

Bibliography:

MILLER, R. & ATWATER, T. (1983): Continents in Collision. Time-life books, Amsterdam: 176
SCALERA, G. (2003): Roberto Mantovani an Italian defender of the continental drift and planetary expansion. From Scalera, G. and Jacob, K.-H. (eds.): Why expanding Earth? – A book in honour of O.C. Hilgenberg. INGV, Rome: 71-74

Tiny Plants Creating Big Rocks

Often enough the rocks determinate the presence and distribution of plants (as shown in the wonderful blog "In the Company of Plants and Rocks"), but sometimes it's the plant shaping the rocks. 

Plate showing the deposition of travertine* around single algae cells (ca. 1935). The high content of carbonic acid (white circles) dissolves carbonate (shown as schematic rhombohedra-crystals). Plants (like this alga) use the carbon dioxide for their metabolism and the water becomes less acid, the carbonate is deposited around the plant tissue. The final figure shows the soft water, with less dissolved carbonate.

The upper caption reads: 

"Tiny Plants
built the Travertine of Polling**
Substance in the water, they found
Sun gave them power"

This plate was drawn by the German Prof. Dr. Gustav Dunzinger (1868-1940), pharmacist and plant-physiologist. Dunzinger dedicated himself also to scientific-botanical illustrations.

Fig.2. Outcrop with travertine investigated by Dunzinger, old quarry near the German village of **Polling.

*Travertine is the general term in Germany for continental limestone, however in English it is referred to limestone from hot springs or deposited by inorganic processes. Calcareous tufa forms by precipitation of calcium carbonate from “cool” springs and river waters, helped by organic processes - the travertine of Polling is therefore a tufa.

A women geoscientist in the Dolomites: Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon

The Scottish Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon (1864-1939), or May as she was known, was the oldest daughter of a pastoral family composed of eight children, five boys and three girls.
The parents had good connections and friends in various schools and colleges - all the surviving children (one died in infanthood) experienced a profound education. Maria entered Merchant Company Schools' Ladies College in Edinburgh at age of 9. Already in these early years she showed a profound interest in nature, so during holidays she enjoyed to explore the landscape of the Highlands accompanied by her elder brother, the later geologist Sir Francis Ogilvie.
May aspired to become a musician and at age 18 she went to London to study music, becoming a promising pianist, but already in the first year her interest to nature prevailed and she decided for a career in science.
Studying both in London and Edinburgh she obtained her degree in geology, botany and zoology in 1890. Maria Ogilvie hoped to follow-up their studies in Germany, but in 1891, despite efforts and friends, even by the famous geologist Baron Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (a pioneer geologist of the Dolomites), she was refused at the University of Berlin - as women were still not permitted to enrol for higher education in England and Germany. She went to Munich, where she was received friendly by eminent palaeontologist Karl von Zittel (1839-1904) and zoologist Richard von Hertwig (1850-1927), in contrast mineralogist Paul Heinrich von Groth (1843-1927) refused to allow the young women to enter his laboratory. Maria Ogilvie was not allowed to enrol in a regular course of studies even at Munich, research was done as private person and to listen to lectures she had to sit in a separate room with the doors half-open.

In July 1891 the couple von Richthofen invited her to join a 5-week trip to the nearby Dolomites Mountains, visiting the Gröden-Valley.
From the first day Maria Ogilvie was immensely impressed by the landscape and soon she started an intense exploration of the area. She learned rock climbing and visited the Mecca of geology, the small village of Predazzo. Richthofen introduced Maria Ogilvie to alpine geology, and the travel party visited the meadows of Stuores in the Gader-Valley. At the time Maria Ogilvie had studied modern corals and was inclined to become a zoologist, but Richthofen, maybe also after showing her the beautiful preserved fossil corals of Stuores, advised her to become rather a geologist and to study and map this area.

Fig.2. View of outcrops of marls on the Stuores pasture.

Richthofen was over 60 and therefore he couldn't provide much support in the field, Maria Ogilvie remembers the challenge and danger of field work, sometimes accompanied by a local rock climber named Josef Kostner:

"When I began my field work, I was not under the eye of any Professor. There was no one to include me in his official round of visits among the young geologists in the field, and to subject my maps and sections to tough criticism on the ground. The lack of supervision at the outset was undoubtedly a serious handicap."
(Ogilvie Gordon 1932)

For two summers she hiked, climbed and studied various areas in the Dolomites and instructed local collectors to carefully record and describe their fossil sites.
In 1893 she published the results in an article titled "Contributions to the geology of the Wengen and St. Cassian Strata in southern Tyrol", where she, as gifted drawer, published not only detailed figures of the landscape of the Dolomites, but also important contributions to the, at the time still poorly know, stratigraphic record of the Dolomites, establishing marker horizons and describing the ecology of various fossil corals associations. She alone described 345 species from the today 1.400 known species of molluscs and corals of the Wengen and St. Cassian Formations.
The published paper, extract of their thesis "The geology of the Wengen and Saint Cassian Strata in southern Tyrol", finally earned her respect by the scientific community, and more important: her DSc degree in 1893 from the University of London (times finally had changed)- the first female DSc in the United Kingdom.

The same year she returned into the Dolomites to proceed with her geological and paleontological research and in 1894 she published her second important contribution, the "Coral in the Dolomites of south Tyrol." Therein Maria Ogilvie emphasized that the systematic of corals must be based on microscopic examination and characteristics, not as usual done at the time simply on superficial resemblance.

In 1895 she returned to Aberdeen, where she married a longstanding admirer, the physician Dr. John Gordon, husband who (unusual for the times) respected and encouraged her passion for the Dolomites. He and the four children accompanied Maria Ogilvie, despite the difficulties of travels, on various excursions into the Pale Mountains.

In 1900 she returned to Munich, becoming the first woman to obtain a PhD at the local University for her previous work in this city (also in Germany times changed). As thank to her old mentor, palaeontologist von Zittel, she translated his extensive German research on the "Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie" into English as "The History of Geology and Palaeontology."

Maria Ogilvie continued her studies and continued to publish, mostly privately. In 1913 she was preparing an ulterior important work about the geology and geomorphology of the Dolomites, to be published in Germany, but in 1914 with the onset of World War I and the death of the publisher the finished maps, plates and manuscripts were lost in the general chaos.
This was a hard setback, but like so many times before Ogilvie would not surrender. In 1922 she returned into the Dolomites, where she encountered the young palaeontologist Julius Pia, who, during the war, had carried out research in the Prags Dolomites. Both became friends, and in 1922 to 1925 they explored many times together the Dolomites.
She published copious volumes of the tectonic evolution of the Dolomites, and also books of geology for the interested layman, hoping to share her fascination of the Dolomites with others - one of the first examples of modern geological guide books for the region.

Fig.3. and 4. Landscape profile (and recent photography) of the Langkofel-massif after a drawing from GORDON & PIA (1939): "Zur Geologie der Langkofelgruppe in den Südtiroler Dolomiten."


Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon succeeded against all odds and unequal treatment of women to study geology and achieve important results in this field. Still today, mapping in the field, many observations of Maria can only be confirmed by modern geologists - also I based some of my field work on her heritage.
To remember her contributions in paleontology in 2000 a new fossil fern genus, discovered in Triassic sediments of the Dolomites, as named after Maria Gordon - Gordonopteris lorigae.

Bibliography:

WACHTLER, M. & BUREK, C.V. (2007): Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon (1864-1939): a Scottish researcher in the Alps. In BUREK, C. V. & HIGGS, B. (eds): The Role of Women in the History of Geology. Geological Society: 305-317