Jens Esmark

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Jens Esmark
Glacier, Briksdalsbreen, Norway

Jens Esmark (31 January 1763 – 26 January 1839)

glaciers, specifically the concept that glaciers had covered larger areas in the past.[2]

Biography

Jens Esmark was born in

Århus, Denmark. Esmark moved to Norway to the silver mining community of Kongsberg. He studied at the local mining academy. He completed his subsequent studies in Copenhagen and was accepted as a surveyor. Starting in 1797, Esmark was employed as a lecturer in mineralogy at the Kongsberg Mining Academy. In 1814, Esmark became Norway's first professor of geology as a professor of geology at the University of Oslo, and was described as "a pioneer in glacial geology", by professor of Quaternary geology and Glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen.[3]

In 1798, Esmark was the first person to ascend Snøhetta, highest in the mountain range Dovrefjell in southern Norway.[4] The same year he led the first expedition to Bitihorn, a small mountain in the southernmost outskirts of Jotunheimen, Norway. In 1810 he was the first person to ascend the mountain Gaustatoppen in Telemark, Norway.

Professor Esmark theorized in 1824 that glaciers had once been larger and thicker and had covered much of Norway and the adjacent

fjords.[6]

Professor Esmark was also an important figure in the history and cultural heritage of mineralogy. He introduced norite the name for which was derived from the Norwegian name for Norway, Norge.[7]

On the island of Løvøya, Norway, his son, Hans Morten Thrane Esmark, found the first specimens of a black mineral, thorite, from which the element thorium is derived.[8] His son also provided him with a new mineral which he found in Arendal, Norway. In 1806 he named datolite, from the Greek word meaning "to divide". This was a reference to the granular structure of the first specimens studied.[9]

In 1825, Professor Esmark was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1832, he was Knighted in the Swedish Order of Vasa.

Selected works

  • Kurze Beschreibung einer mineralogischen Reise durch Ungarn, Siebenbürgen und das Bannat ( Freyberg, 1798)
  • Reise fra Christiania til Trondhjem (1829)

Notes

  1. ^ https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Jens_Esmark
  2. ^ Jens Esmark (Store norske leksikon)
  3. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3885.1992.tb00016.x
    .
  4. ^ "Snøhetta". Archived from the original on October 31, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-18. Archived 2007-10-31 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ISBN 978-0-521-82409-5
    .
  6. ^ "Birth of the Glacial Theory". academic.emporia.edu. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  7. ^ "Publications related to the history and cultural heritage of mineralogy". Archived from the original on 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2007-01-18. Archived 2007-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Thorium". BBC.co. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  9. ^ "Datolite". The Gemology Project. Retrieved 2007-01-18.

References

Hestmark, Geir & Nordli, Øivind 2016. Jens Esmark’s Christiania (Oslo) meteorological observations 1816-1838: The first long term continuous temperature record from the Norwegian capital homogenized and analysed. Climate of the Past 12: 2087- 2106.


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