Wiesław Bilan (1940-1992)

Abstract

Dr Wiesław Bilan died in Cracow on 19 September 1992 at the age of 52 years. He was born in Przemyśl, on the 9th February 1940. He graduated in geology in 1967 at the Faculty of Prospecting Geology of the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Cracow and took up a job of an assistant at the Department of Geology in this School. In 1975 he obtained a doctorate. His thesis concerned stratigraphy of the Upper Triassic of the eastern margin of the Silesian Coal Basin. During the next years Dr Bilan considerably contributed to the micropaleontology of the Keuper and Rhaelian of Poland. He was particularly interested in Charophytes and Ostracods as well as in microfacies of Late Palaeozoic and Triassic calcareous sediments. His best known publication „The epicontinental Triassic Charophytes of Poland” was edited in Acta Palaeobolanica Polonica as a dissertation of the second scientific degree (dr hab.). Since 1989 he had worked as an associate professor in the Institute of Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Cracow Academy. During the last few years Dr Bilan concentrated on the Quaternary micropaleontology (Charophytes and Ostracods) and published his first contributions in this problem. He was a member of the Polish Geological Society and of the Commision of Quaternary Palaeogeography of the Polish Academy of Sciences. As a scholar of great knowledge and experience he lectured one Historical Geology and on Principles of Stratigraphy and Palaeoecology. Since 1974 Dr Bilan had been a Secretary of Redaction of the Quaterly AGH - Geologia. After 1980 he was also a member of Solidarity and during three years - vice-director of Institute of Geology and Mineral Deposits. He was a friendly and helpfull man toward all his co-workers and students. Anybody, who had a chance to meet him or to work with Dr Bilan always think of him as a very exacting but also warm hearted colleague and teacher.