Alfred Kröner (8 September 1939 – 22 May 2019) was a German Professor of Geology at

Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

, Germany. He specialized in the

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

geology of Africa and geology of China but worked on many other geologic problems around the world. His research focused on the tectonics of the continental crust, geochronology, geochemistry, palaeomagnetism,

structural geology Structural geology is the study of the three-dimensional distribution of rock units with respect to their deformational histories. The primary goal of structural geology is to use measurements of present-day rock geometries to uncover informati ...

, and petrology. He was especially interested in the Precambrian and Palaeozoic evolution of the

continental crust Continental crust is the layer of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks that forms the geological continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as '' continental shelves''. This layer is sometimes called '' si ...

Career

Kröner was born in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

. He studied geology at the Technical University in

Clausthal-Zellerfeld Clausthal-Zellerfeld () is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The town hosts the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort is locate ...

, Germany, the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, Austria, and the Technical University in Munich, Germany, graduating with a Diploma (M.Sc.) in 1965. After 18 months of military service in Germany he continued his studies as a Ph.D. student in the Precambrian Research Unit,

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

, South Africa, beginning in 1966; he obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1968. After 6 months as exploration geologist in

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

he returned to Cape Town as a Senior Research Fellow of the Precambrian Research Unit, undertaking research projects in

Namaqualand Namaqualand ( Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River int ...

and Namibia and supervising research students. From 1974 to 1976 He was Acting Director of the Precambrian Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. In 1977 he moved back to Germany to take over the Chair of General and Regional Geology at the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

. He was a visiting scientist at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, USA, the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

in Canberra,

Curtin University of Technology Curtin University (previously Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology) is an Australian public research university based in Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. It is named after John Curtin, Prime Minister ...

and the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

, both in Perth. After his retirement from U. Mainz, he accepted an invitation to start a long-term relationship with the SHRIMP Centre of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (CAGS) in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, where he spent six months every year. From 2008 until 2019 he was Visiting Research Professor at the Beijing SHRIMP Centre. From there, he was able to travel the world to study Precambrian rocks and then bring these samples back to CAGS, where he was able to obtain robust U-Pb zircon ages. He was a member of numerous professional societies, a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and a Honorary Professor of Northwestern University, Xi'an, China. He was co-editor of the journals

Precambrian Research ''Precambrian Research'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the geology of the Earth and its planetary neighbors. It is published by Elsevier and, , the editor-in-chief is V. Pease (Stockholm University). It was established in 1974. Ac ...

(Elsevier) and Terra Nova (Blackwells). The

American Journal of Science The ''American Journal of Science'' (''AJS'') is the United States of America's longest-running scientific journal, having been published continuously since its conception in 1818 by Professor Benjamin Silliman, who edited and financed it himself ...

, published by

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, in dedicating a special issue to him on his 60th birthday,''American Journal of Science'', Dec. 2001
PDF
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celebrated with a symposium in Mainz. It was here at the Johannes Gutenberg-University that Alfred was appointed full Professor of Geology in 1977. After this, he expanded his activities over several continents as a truly cosmopolitan geoscientist of overwhelming efficiency, recognized and appreciated worldwide in the Geoscience community.

Kröner died in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

. When he died,

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

showed that he had almost 35,000 citations in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and a

Hirsch index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning the ...

of 107.

Publications

Books

*''Late Precambrian formations in the western Richtersveld, Northern Cape Province'' by A Kröner ape Town: Precambrian Research Unit, University of Cape Town, 1974. *''Precambrian plate tectonics'' by A Kröner. Amsterdam ; New York : Elsevier Scientific Pub. Co. ; New York : Elsevier North-Holland istributor 1981. *''Field Geology of High-Grade Gneiss Terrains'' : C. W. Passchier, Myers, JS, and Kroner, A. Springer-Verlag, 1990, (). *''Precambrian tectonics illustrated'' by Alfred Kröner; Reinhard Greiling; International Union of Geological Sciences. Stuttgart : Schweizerbart, 1984. , *'' Archaean Geochemistry: The Origin and Evolution of the Archaean Continental Crust'' GN Hanson, AM Goodwin, A Kröner - 1984 *''Geology of Northeast Africa'' H Schandelmeier, RJ Stern, A Kröner - 1994 - Springer International

References

External links

Official website at Mainz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroner, Alfred 20th-century German geologists 2019 deaths 1939 births Academic staff of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz 21st-century German geologists Clausthal University of Technology alumni