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From Local to Global Petroleum Geology: Hans Höfer von Heimhalt’s Contributions Between Empires, Economies and Epistemologies

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Book cover History, Exploration & Exploitation of Oil and Gas

Part of the book series: Historical Geography and Geosciences ((HIGEGE))

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Abstract

The paper deals with three main publications at the beginning of the coming into being of petroleum geology contributed by the Austrian/Bohemian expert Hans Höfer von Heimhalt (1843–1924) in 1877, 1888 (often reprinted and translated in many languages), 1913–1919 in the context of his life and academic career in the Habsburg Monarchy. Trained at the Mining Academy in Leoben (Styria, Austria) and as professor at different mining academies within the Habsburg Empire and integrated in the thought collective of the Imperial Geological Survey in Vienna, Höfer’s interest started with a local perspective on petroleum not in Europe but in North America after the Austrian Trade Ministry mandated his visit to the World Exhibition in Philadelphia 1876. There he encountered the new approaches in petroleum findings in the USA and published his first book about petroleum in North America (1877) in which he established his thesis about the causes of the origin and formation of petroleum, the anticlinal theory at the basis of his regional insight. Höfer’s further books on petroleum represent the change from local surface indications to systematically applied petrology, sedimentology and stratigraphy to the search for hydrocarbon accumulations. Modern exploration methods and a worldwide mapping of all oil-known occurrences showed the global interest in this matter and the opening of doors to modern universal geochemical methods of exploration and the close connection between theory and practice, field geology and experiments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An anticlinal is a fold with an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds in its core.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for History, University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1, 1010, Vienna, Austria

    Marianne Klemun

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  1. Marianne Klemun
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Correspondence to Marianne Klemun .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas-SP, São Paulo, Brazil

    Silvia Fernanda Figueirôa

  2. Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD, USA

    Gregory A. Good

  3. Institute of Energy and Environment, University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Drielli Peyerl

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Klemun, M. (2019). From Local to Global Petroleum Geology: Hans Höfer von Heimhalt’s Contributions Between Empires, Economies and Epistemologies. In: Figueirôa, S., Good, G., Peyerl, D. (eds) History, Exploration & Exploitation of Oil and Gas. Historical Geography and Geosciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13880-6_1

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