Lagniappe
Gustavo
Coronel:
Remembering
Hans M. Bolli (1917-2007)
A
small black ribbon was placed last October 5 at the door of Germaniastrasse
64, in Zurich. Hans Martin Bolli died that day
in his home city of Zurich, at the age of 90. I met Hans in Maracaibo,
while working in Shell Venezuela during the early 1960’s,
when I was doing geological work. I remember him as a perfect
Swiss gentleman, soft spoken, always with an elegant smile in
his face. He was born and educated in Zurich. His doctoral thesis
on the Upper Cretaceous of the Helvetic nappes became an instant
classic.
Bolli never had any doubt as to what he would do with his life.
He would be a micropaleontologist. His long and happy monogamous
marriage with planktonic and benthic foraminiferal biostratigraphy
converted him in a giant of the paleontological sciences, in
the line of Cushman.
He came to South America after graduation, first to Trinidad,
as head of the Micropaleontological laboratory of Texaco, where
he excelled in the study of benthic foraminifera and started
the study of planktonic species. In 1958 he came to Venezuela
where he started work with Atlantic Refining in Caracas and,
later, moved to Shell Venezuela, in Caracas and Maracaibo, where
I met him. In those years I moved among giants and did not realize
it: Hans Bolli, H.H. Renz, Karl Dallmus, Konrad Habicht, Otto
Renz, R. M. Stainforth, Harry Hess, Clemente Gonzalez de Juana,
Harold Reading, what a crop! They all belonged in a geological
Olympus. In fact, Bolli would go on to win the Joseph Cushman
Award, in 1984.
Bolli was a micro paleontologist who could talk with the common
geologists such as myself and explain why it was important for
us to obtain good samples in the field.
As a scientist he was
in a class by himself but always had a kind word for us younger
geologists and minor creatures.
After his long and distinguished career in the oil industry Hans
Bolli went back home, to Zurich, where he became Professor of
Geology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Chairman
of the Geology Department. Upon retirement he became an Emeritus
professor at his alma mater, the University of Zurich.
At 90 the love affair of Hans Martin Bolli with the Globigerina
and the Globotruncana came to an end. Our condolences go to his
relatives in Zurich and to his first-class Venezuelan pupils
and colleagues.
Gustavo
Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member
of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela
(PDVSA), author of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld
associate editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content
of the site. All Coronel's articles can be read at its blog lasarmasdecoronel.
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Petroleumworld
News 11/05/07
Copyright© 2007
Gustavo
Coronel. All rights reserved.
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