Wawrzyniec Teisseyre (1860-1939)

Abstract

The 2-nd April 1939 died at Lvov Professor Laurent Teisseyre, one of the most prominent Polish geologists. Born in 1860 at Cracov, received his early education at this town and then at Tarnopol. In the years 1879—1883 he studied geology and palentology at the University in Vienna, where he had the possibility to get acquainted with great conceptions of E. Suess. In 1883 he worked as voluntary assistant in State Geological Institute in Vienna, and then he started on a scientific journey to Central Russia. From thence he brought a rich collection of fossil blastoids and cystoids, which he further paleontologically worked out. After publishing the results of this work L. Teisseyre obtained his doctor’s degree in 1885. Then he was appointed assistant at the Geological Institute of the University in Cracov. At the same time he was also appointed member of the Physiographic Committee of the Polish Academy of Science and started scientific research in Podolia for the great Geological Atlas of Galicia. In 1895 as c stipendary of the Polish Academy of Science he undertook his second scientific journey at this time to Germany. In 1896 L. Teisseyre was appointed petroleum geologist of the State Geological Survey in Rumania. There he executed many scientific researches in the Rumanians oil fields and worked with such fruitful activity for the development of the oil industry, that he was distinguished with the noble order of Roumanian Crown. Shortly before the first great war Professor Teisseyre returned to Poland and in 1919 was appointed deputy director of the State Geological Survey in Warsaw. There he worked to 1923, and in 1925 was appointed professor of geology at the Polytechnical College in Lvov. In his scientific researches the late professor was always very interested in paleontology, stratigraphy, tectonics, oil geology and geologic cartography. He gave us over 70 precious publications. He was eminent connoisseur of paleontological problems. In his scientific course he started just with paleontological studies on the fossil blastoids and cystoids, and then solved paleontological problem of the famous Sarmatic bryozoan reef in Miodobory (Podolia). During his stay in Rumania he studied again the fossil fauna of the Miocene and Pliocene. It should be underlined that Professor Teisseyre was the first who with L. Mrazec discovered and described the famous diapir folds. All these studies were of great importance for the stratigraphy and tectonics of the Rumanian oil deposits and the development of the oil industry. But the most splendid chapter in the scientific activity of Professor Teisseyre were his researches in Podolia resulted with the publication of nine geological maps and many papers. Of most importance there is his geologic syntesis of Podolia. It had became the foundation of our knowledge about this country and the ideas comprised in the guide-post for the next researches executed by younger students. In particular the Author pointed the necessity of examining the hypsometric relations in which there he different structural planes as a way leading to solving the internal structure of Podolia and Opolia. He was the first who came to the conclusion that the Paleozoic plateau of Podolia is a great horst limited by several flexures. In a series of papers published in the years 1920—1938, L. Teisseyre developed his syntesis of Carpathians eastern foreland. He demonstrated in many ways, facial, stratigraphical, as well geophysical, that the whole of the tectonic structure of it shows three chronologically different systems of dislocations in style of broad warping. There were namely ukrainopodolian and sudeto-scythian both precambrian systems and the podoloopolian one of Tertiary age. In other papers Professor pointed to the necessity of an exact confirmation of the homologies of the Carpathians foreland and hinterland. As it is known, the foreland enters beneath the chain of the mountains. Then their folding structure ought to be dependent on the tectonics of the foreland and its prolongation below the mountains hiding itself in their substratum. The idea is of great importance for the oil deposits occuring in the Carpathian flysch. The most striking proof of the idea are the famous oil fields in Borysław which lie exactly in prolongation of the flexure called Gołogóry-Krzemieniec. Plunging in the depth of the Subcarpathian Depression it strikes then transversely in the substratum of the mountains. Prof. Teisseyre was an experienced and estimable expert in oil geology. He studied many oil fields in Poland, was member of several oil committies and is well merited for development of our oil industry. He was a man of great personality, a honourable gentleman admired for his splendid mentality. His name became famous in the European geologie literature. By his death the Polish science and the Polish Geological Society sufiFered a great loss.