SUESS

AUSTRIA (see also List of Individuals)

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20.8.1831 London/UK - 26.4.1914 Wien/A

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Eduard Suess was born in the British capital where his father, a native of Saxony, had settled as a German merchant. The family moved in 1834 to Prague, and in 1845 to Vienna. Suess had a bent for geology already at the age of nineteen and subsequently published on the geology of Carlsbad and its mineral waters. In 1852 he was appointed an assistant at the Imperial Museum of Vienna and manifested such ability that he was appointed professor of geology five years later at Vienna University. From 1862 to 1901 he would only work in scientific geology dealing mainly with the former connection between northern Africa and Europe. In 1862 he published an essay on the soils and the water supply of Vienna. From the 1880s, Suess turned his attention to problems connected with the evolution of the earth's surface features, on which he presented a monumental treatise Das Antlitz der Erde, comprising a total of three volumes and being translated in various languages.

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Suess was working in geology but also contributed to hydraulics. He presented reports on the water supply system to be adopted for the capital, to which a number of distinguished engineers have contributed with the spring water supply. Suess also took interest in the course of Danube River around the capital, with its meanders that he tried to explain from a geological point of view. In parallel he was thus also interested in the groundwater flow below the river and the development of hot springs, again in relation with geology. Next to his main three-volume book, Suess also presented a work on the origin of the Alps in 1875. Suess was elected in 1889 a Corresponding Member of Académie des Sciences, Paris, and he was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society from 1894. He was awarded the Wollaston Medal from the Royal Geological Society, London, in 1896. Suess also presided over the Imperial Academy in Vienna.

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_{Anonymous (1914). Eduard Suess. Umschau 18: 439. P}

_{Donner, J. (1973). 100 Jahre Wiener Hochquellenleitung. Österreichische Wasserwirtschaft}

_{25(9/10): 169-172.}

_{Hilber, V. (1915). Eduard Suess. Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein Steiermark Mitteilung 51: 3-7. P Piccoli, G. (1975). Eduard Suess. Scienziati e tecnologi 3: 166-167. Mondadori: Milano. P Suess, E. (1862). Der Boden der Stadt Wien. Braumüller: Wien.}

_{Suess, E. (1875). Die Entstehung der Alpen. Braumüller: Wien. Suess, E. (1885). Das Antlitz der Erde. Tempsky: Prag.}

_{Tietze, E. (1916). Einige Seiten über E. Suess. Jahrbuch Geologische Reichsanstalt 66: 333-556.}