Das Grdener-, Fassa- und Enneberggebiet in den Södtiroler Dolomiten: Geologische Beschreibung mit besonderer Beröcksichtigung der œberschiebungserscheinungen

Abstract

THE work under review is one exceptional for its comprehensiveness, and one that marks the conclusion of an enormous amount of labour, both physical and mental, on the part of the author, Dr. Maria Ogilvie Gordon. Begun in youth, under the aegis of two great students, Ferdinand von Richthofen and August Rothpletz, both long since dead, it was completed after she had borne with fortitude the bitter blow that fate had dealt her as a wife, and after she had devoted her energies to her country's cause during the War. By reason of the length of the period over which the work was spread, and the magnitude of the events that encompassed us all during the years of interruption, her earliest work must appear now as objective to her as to the reviewer. It must almost seem not to be her own work, but that of some stranger of a past generation. Yet underlying all her work, from those early days of 1893 up to the present time, one motive may be traced—the endeavour to unravel the tectonic structure of the Dolomites, enormously complicated in reality, albeit described as simple by some; and, on the basis of this work, to solve certain other problems, one of the most important of which is the question, first raised by von Richthofen, and since repeatedly denied or affirmed, as to the coral-reef origin of the gigantic masses of limestone and dolomite. It must, moreover, be mentioned with approbation that the author, in spite of the keenness and originality of her own perception, has adhered to the principle laid down by von Richthofen so to present her observations that they remain available for other interpretations. This remark is especially applicable to the work now under review. Das Grdener-, Fassa- und Enneberggebiet in den Sodtiroler Dolomiten: Geologische Beschreibung mit besonderer Berocksichtigung der œberschiebungserscheinungen. Von Dr. Maria M. Ogilvie Gordon. 1 und 2 Teil: Stratigraphie-Tektonik. (Abhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt, Band 24, Heft 1.) Pp. xxiii + 376 + 26 Tafeln. 90s. 3 Teil: Paloontologie. Mit einem Atlas von 13 Tafeln. (Abhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt, Band 24, Heft 2.) Pp. 89. 30s. (Wien: Geologische Bundesanstalt, 1927.)