A man from Bendery: L.S. Berg as geographer and loess scholar

• Autorzy: Smalley Ian , Markovic Slobodan , O’Hara-Dhand Ken , Wynn Peter
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

Lev Semenovich Berg was born in Bendery, in Moldova. He had great success as an ichthyologist and geographer; he also proposed, in 1916, an interesting theory of loess formation. As a biologist he was persecuted by Lysenko and the Soviet state in the time of pseudo-science in the 1930s and 1940s. Despite his being persecuted, the loess theory became, in effect, the official Soviet theory of loess formation. This theory had to be compatible with his ‘landscape’ theory which did not find favour in Marxist-Leninist geography. Berg’s loess theory was very much a geographical theory, as opposed to the geological theory of aeolian deposition, which was accepted outside the Soviet Union.Berg was hugely successful in many fields, but his contributions to loess science tend to be neglected. His ‘soil’ theory of loess formation has been widely disparaged but still has some influence in Russia. The concept of loessification may still be relevant to the later stages of deposit formation; the slow transition from metastable to collapsible may be best described as loessification.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Lev Semenovich Berg; theories of loess formation; landscape theory; loessification

PL

formacja lessowa; krajobraz

• Wydawca: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza. Instytut Geologii
• Czasopismo: Geologos
• Rocznik: 2010
• Tom: Vol. 16, No. 2
• Strony: 111--119
• Opis fizyczny: Bibliogr. 29 poz.

Twórcy

autor

Smalley Ian

• Giotto Loess Research Group, Arkwright Materials Project, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK

autor

Markovic Slobodan

• Physical Geography Section, Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad, Voyvodina, Serbia

autor

O’Hara-Dhand Ken

• Giotto Loess Research Group, Arkwright Materials Project, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK

autor

Wynn Peter

• Giotto Loess Research Group, Arkwright Materials Project, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK

Bibliografia

• Berg, L.S., 1915. The subject and tasks of geography. Izvestiya Russkogo Geograficheskovo Obshchestva (Communications of the Russian Geographical Foundation, World List 24360a) 51, 463-475 (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1916. The origin of loess. Izvestiya Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 52, 579-646 (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1922. Climate and life. Geografgiz, Moscow 324 pp. (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1926. The soil theory of loess formation. Izvestiya Geograficheskogo Instituta (Communications of the Geographical Institute) 6, 72-92 (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1927. The problem of loess. Priroda 6 (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1929. The problem of loess. Priroda 4, 5 (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1932. The origin of loess. Gerlands Beiträge zur Geophysik 35, 130-150 (partial reprint in Smalley, 1975, 61-75).
• Berg, L.S., 1947. Climate and life (2nd ed.) Geografgiz, Moscow 355 pp. (in Russian).
• Berg, L.S., 1960. Collected works (with ‘Climate and life’ as volume 3, containing a major section on loess).
• Berg, L.S., 1964. Loess as a product of weathering and soil formation. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem, 207 pp. (a section from ‘Climate and life’ volume 3, 2nd ed., 1947, in Collected Works 1960).
• Birstein, V.J. & Bemis, W.E., 1997. Leo Semenovich Berg and the biology of Acipenseriformes: a dedication. Environmental Biology of Fishes 48, 15-22.
• Makeev, A.O, 2009. Pedogenic alteration of aeolian sediments in the upper loess mantles of the Russian Plain. Quaternary International doi:1016/j.quaint 2009.03.007.
• Medvedev, Zh.A., 1969. The rise and fall of T.D. Lysenko. Columbia University Press, New York, 184 pp.
• Pecsi, M., 1990. Loess is not just the accumulation of dust. Quaternary International 7/8, 1-21.
• Pecsi, M., 1995. The role of principles and methods in loess-palaeosol investigations. GeoJournal 36, 117-131.
• Pecsi, M., Nemecz, E. & Hartyani, Z., 2000. Formation of minerals in loess and soils. Acta Geologica Hungarica43, 379-404.
• Pyaskovskii, B.V., 1946. Loess as a deep soil formation, Pochvovedenie 1946 686-696 (in Russian; English translation in Loess Letter Supplement 3, 1989).
• Różycki, S.Z., 1991. Loess and loess-like deposits. Ossolineum, Wrocław, 187 pp.
• Shaw, D.J.B. & Oldfield, J.D., 2007. Landscape science: a Russian geographical tradition. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97, 111-126.
• Shaw, D.J.B. & Oldfield, J.D., 2008a. Totalitarianism and geography: L.S. Berg and the defence of an academic discipline in the age of Stalin. Political Geography 27, 96-112.
• Shaw, D.J.B. & Oldfield, J.D., 2008b. Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries among Soviet geographers in the late Stalin era. Europe-Asia Studies 60, 1397-1418.
• Smalley, I.J., 1971. ‘In-situ’ theories of loess formation and the significance of the calcium carbonate content of loess. Earth-Science Reviews 7, 67-85 (reprinted in part in Smalley, 1975).
• Smalley, I.J. (ed.), 1975. Loess: lithology and genesis [Bench-mark Papers in Geology 26]. Dowden Hutchinson and Ross.
• Smalley, I.J., 1978. Dokuchaev and the Russian approach to the study of loess. Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society, Science Section 10, 231-243 (reprinted as Loess Letter Supplement).
• Smalley, I.J. & Rogers, C.D.F., 1997. L.S. Berg and the soil theory of loess formation. [In:] Yaalon, D.H. & Berkowicz, S. (Eds): History of soil science: international perspectives. Advaces in GeoEcology 29, 377-391.
• Smalley, I.J., Jefferson, I.F., Dijkstra, T.A. & Derbyshire, E., 2001. Some major events in the development of the scientific study of loess. Earth-Science Reviews 54, 5-18.
• Smalley, I.J., Jary, Z. & O’Hara-Dhand, K., 2006a. Loessification: on the 130th anniversary of the birth of L.S. Berg. IUSS/HPSSS Newsletter 13, 17-20; Loess Letter 56, 18-24; New Zealand Soil News 54, 71-74.
• Smalley, I.J., Jefferson, I.F., O’Hara-Dhand, K. & Evans, R.D., 2006b. An approach to the problem of loess deposit formation: some comments on the ‘in-situ’ or ‘soil-eluvial’ hypothesis. Quaternary International152/153, 120-128.
• Smalley, I.J., O’Hara-Dhand, K., Wint, J., Machalett, B., Jary, Z. & Jefferson, I.F., 2008. Rivers and loess: the significance of long river transportation in the complex event sequence approach to loess deposit formation. Quaternary International 198.

Uwagi

Opracowanie rekordu w ramach umowy 509/P-DUN/2018 ze środków MNiSW przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (2019).