Johan Aschehoug Kiær
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Johan Aschehoug Kiær (October 11, 1869 – October 31, 1931) was a Norwegian
paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...
and
geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...
.


Biography

Johan Kiær was born in
Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such ...
, Norway. He was the son of parish priest Hagbarth Kiær (1829–1903) and grandson of shipowner and Member of Parliament Hans Andersen Kiær (1795–1867). He was a nephew of Elias C. Kiær (1863–1939) operator of the family company And. H. Kiær & Co. which had been founded by his great-grandfather, Anders Hansen Kiær (1769–1838). Kiær studied zoology and then paleontology for three years under Professor Karl Alfred von Zittel (1839–1904) at
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
where in 1896 he received his doctorate. In 1909 he was appointed professor of
paleontology Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure ge ...
at the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...
, as the first in Norway to hold such a position. He was also head of the Palaeontological Museum of Oslo which opened in 1920. His most important publication was his doctoral dissertation from 1906, ''Das Obersilur im Kristianiagebiete''. His most notable work was the excavation of a rich fauna of jawless fish and sea scorpions from the Rudstangen fauna of the Sundvollen Formation in the stratigraphy of the Ringerike Group (1908, 1911, 1924). He also took part in work on
Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...
and to
Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...
. He work covered
coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...
s,
trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinction, extinct marine arthropods that form the class (biology), class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most succ ...
s, and especially
Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...
and
Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...
fishes.Obituary in ''Nature'' 129, 88-88 (16 January 1932) Kiær was responsible for the construction of the paleontological section of the Paleontologisk Museum at Tøyen in Oslo. He was an important inspiration for the work of palaeontologist Anatol Heintz (1898–1975) who was director of the Paleontological Museum from 1940.


Selected works

*'' Das Obersilur im Kristianiagebiete'' (1906) *'' Revision der mittelsilurischen Heliolitiden und neue Beitrage zur Stammes geschichte derselben'' (1903)


References

1869 births 1931 deaths People from Drammen Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Norwegian paleontologists 19th-century Norwegian geologists 20th-century Norwegian geologists Academic staff of the University of Oslo Johan {{Norway-academic-bio-stub