Alexander du Toit

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Alexander Logie du Toit (14 March 1878 – 25 February 1948) was a geologist from South Africa, and an early supporter of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift[1].

Born in Newlands in 1878, du Toit was educated at the Diocesan College in Rondebosch and the University of the Cape of Good Hope Encouraged by his grandfather, Captain Alexander Logie, he graduated in 1899 in mining engineering at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow. After a short period studying geology at the Royal College of Science in London, he returned to Glasgow to lecture in geology, mining and surveying at the University of Glasgow and the Royal Technical College.

In 1903, du Toit was appointed as a geologist within the Geological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope, and began to develop an extensive knowledge of the geology of southern Africa by mapping large portions of the Karoo and its dolerite intrusions and publishing numerous papers on the subject. Subsequently he mapped the entire Karoo System through the complete stratigraphy from Dwyka tillite to the basalt of the Drakensberg. He worked at a furious rate, but was known for his painstaking meticulousness. In 1920 he joined the Union Irrigation Department as water geologist, and in 1927 became chief consulting geologist to De Beers Consolidated Mines, a position he held to his retirement in 1941.

In 1923, he received a grant from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and used this to travel to eastern South America to study the geology of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. Struck by the similarities to South Africa, du Toit published a review of the stratigraphic and radioisotope evidence from these regions that supported Alfred Wegener's ideas, A Geological Comparison of South America with South Africa (1927). A later book, Our Wandering Continents (1937), expanded and improved this work, and, departing somewhat from Wegener, proposed two original supercontinents separated by the Tethys Ocean, a northern/equatorial Laurasia and a southern/polar Gondwanaland.

In 1933, du Toit was awarded the Murchison Medal by the Geological Society of London, and in 1943 became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1949, the year after du Toit's death, the Geological Society of South Africa inaugurated a biennial lecture series in his honour that continues to the present day[2]. In 1973, a 75 km crater on Mars (71.8°S, 49.7°W) was named "Du Toit" in recognition of his work[3][4].

[edit] Significant publications

  • du Toit, A.L. (1926) The Geology of South Africa, Oliver & Boyd, London, UK
  • du Toit, A.L. and Reed, F.R.C. (1927) A Geological Comparison of South America with South Africa, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, USA
  • du Toit, A.L. (1937) Our Wandering Continents; An Hypothesis of Continental Drifting, Oliver & Boyd, London, UK

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hancock, Paul L.; Skinner, Brian J. & Dineley, David L. (2000), The Oxford Companion to The Earth, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-854039-6 
  2. ^ The De Beers Alex du Toit Memorial Lecture 2006, Geological Society of South Africa, retrieved 9 July 2007
  3. ^ Du Toit crater, Atlas of Mars, NASA, retrieved 9 July 2007
  4. ^ Du Toit crater, Google Mars, retrieved 10 July 2007

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Du Toit, Alexander Logie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES du Toit, Alexander Logie; du Toit, Alex; du Toit, Alex Logie
SHORT DESCRIPTION South African geologist
DATE OF BIRTH 14 March 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa
DATE OF DEATH 25 February 1948
PLACE OF DEATH Cape Town, South Africa