Human impacts on geomorphic systems and the legacy of Karl W. Butzer
Abstract
Karl Butzer (b. 1934) was part of a great diaspora who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and many were scientists or, like Karl, became scientists whose work enriched the world (Grant, 2018). With his family, he first went to the United Kingdom and then to Canada. He received two degrees at McGill in Montreal-in Mathematics and in Meteorology and Geography-before going back to Germany (Bonn) to complete a doctorate in Physical Geography and Ancient History under the supervision of the renowned German geographer Carl Troll, thus inheriting a long tradition in German geography and geomorphology. He came to the United States to teach at the University of Wisconsin (1959-1966), the University of Chicago (1966-1984), and the University of Texas at Austin (1984-2016) with a brief time at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (1981-1982). K. W. Butzer drew from and published in many fields, but his critical consilience of geomorphology with history through hundreds of publications based on fieldwork around the world was an unmatched achievement. Many disciplines and academies honored those achievements, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences who elected him for his many contributions to science, not least of which was his key role forging the burgeoning science of geoarchaeology (Cordova et al., 2017).
- Publication:
-
Geomorphology
- Pub Date:
- April 2019
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.geomorph.2018.12.027
- Bibcode:
- 2019Geomo.331....1B