Hermann Karsten, pioneer of geologic mapping in northwestern South America

Abstract

Abstract. In the late 19th century, a regional map of Nueva Granada (present-day Colombia, Panama and parts of Venezuela and Ecuador) was published by German botanist and geologist Hermann Karsten (1817–1908). Karsten's work was incorporated by Agustín Codazzi (1793–1859), an Italian who emigrated to Venezuela and Colombia to serve as a government cartographer and geographer, in his popular Atlas geográfico e histórico de la Republica de Colombia (1889). Geologic mapping and most observations provided in this 1889 atlas were taken from Karsten's Géologie de l'ancienne Colombie bolivarienne: Vénézuela, Nouvelle-Grenade et Ecuador (1886), as cited by Manual Paz and/or Felipe Pérez, who edited this edition of the atlas. Karsten defined four epochs in Earth history: Primera – without life – primary crystalline rocks, Segunda – with only marine life – chiefly sedimentary rocks, Tercera – with terrestrial quadrupeds and fresh water life forms life – chiefly sedimentary rocks, and Cuarta – mankind appears, includes diluvial (glacigenic) and post-diluvial terranes. He noted that Colombia is composed of chiefly of Quaternary, Tertiary and Cretaceous plutonic, volcanic and sedimentary rocks, and that Earth's internal heat (calor central) accounted, by escape of inner gases, for volcanism, seismicity and uplift of mountains. Karsten's regional mapping and interpretation thus constitutes the primary source and ultimate pioneering geologic research.