Eduard Suess

Eduard Suess , 1831-1914, Austrian geologist, b. London. He was a professor (1857-1901) at the Univ. of Vienna and served for more than 20 years in the Austrian parliament. He was an authority on structural geology, especially of mountains, and postulated the existence of the giant land mass Gondwanaland (see continental drift ). His great work was Das Antlitz der Erde (5 vol., 1883-1901; tr. The Face of the Earth, 1904-24).

Suess, Eduard (1831–1914) Professor of geology in Vienna, Suess published his important work on structural geology, Das Antlitz der Erde (‘Face of the Earth’), between 1833 and 1909. He studied mountain building, especially the Alps which he believed to have been formed in a geosyncline, which he named Tethys. He opposed the concept of isostasy, arguing that subsidence of the ocean floors had caused what he termed ‘eustatic’ changes in sea level. See OROGENY; and EUSTATIC.

Suess, Edouard (1831–1914) One of the great names in late nineteenth-century geology, Edouard Suess lived for most of his life in Vienna. He was a natural academic of great charm and energy. After graduation he worked at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. During an ascent of the Dachstein in the eastern Alps he was so impressed by the view that he soon began a scientific study of landforms and the geological structures that underlie them. This was to be the main theme of his research for many years. Suess was interested in fossils, having been involved with classifying brachiopods while at the museum. To these studies he added others concerning graptolites, ammonoids, and mammals.

He gained a professorship in the University of Vienna in 1861, and on becoming President of the Imperial Academy in 1898, he transformed it, too, into a highly efficient scientific body.

Suess was the first to recognize the apparently symmetrical arrangement of structures within the various Alpine mountain ranges of Europe. He distinguished stable forelands and hinterlands, postulated sequences of tectonic events in orogenic belts, and the relative youth or antiquity of mountain landscapes. His influence upon Alpine geologists was huge. He was the first to develop the concept of the geosyncline, though he did not use the word. He also paid attention to the importance of global sea level throughout geological history, and suggested that change in its level resulted from deformation of the ocean floor and from build-up of sediment. He distinguished continental crust (which he called sial) from oceanic crust (sima) on the basis of their overall composition. Many such concepts were discussed in his three-volume masterpiece Das Antlitz der Erde (The face of the Earth, 1883–1909).

D. L. Dineley