Responsible, more than any other scientist, for introducing the idea of an absolute, astronomically based chronology to the Earth sciences, Zeuner played a pioneer role. He was a true environmentalist, one of that disappearing breed of whole scientists who could name, as they walked across the country, not only every rock, fossil and human artifact, but every species of tree, flower, bird or butterfly. The science of nature, as he saw it, was one: the study of mankind, archeology, geomorphology and geology, should all be integrated. ‘He was a giant of our time,’ wrote one obituarist (Cornwall, 1964a, b).
Born in Berlin, and educated at Berlin, Tübingen and Breslau, in 1931 he became lecturer at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Here he was closely influenced by Walter Soergel whose application of the Milankovitch astronomic-climatic curves to Quaternary stratigraphy was to have far-reaching effects in geochronology. Zeuner took up this problem with tremendous enthusiasm, becoming its major...
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Bibliography
Cornwall, I. W., 1964a. Obituary. Proc. Geol. Assoc., 75, 117–20.
Cornwall, I. W., 1964b. Obituary. Zeitschr. Geomorph., 8, 382–3.
Schwarzbach, N., 1963. Climates of the Past (trans. Muir, R. O.). London: Van Nostrand, 328 pp.
Zeuner, F. E., 1934. Das Klima des Eisvorlandes in den Glazialzeiten. Neues Jahrbuch, Beil.-Bd. 72–B.
Zeuner, F. E., 1945. The Pleistocene Period. London: Ray Soc., 322 pp. (2nd revised edn, 1959, London: Hutchinson).
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1999). Zeuner, frederick everard (1905–63). In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_372
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