Primitivo Hernández-Sampelayo (1880-1959): hierros y fósiles paleozoicos

Abstract

The mining engineer Primitivo Hernández-Sampelayo was one of the most relevant figures in the study of the Spanish Paleozoic since Lucas Mallada’s time. After a few years working in mining companies, he entered the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain in 1914, where he worked until his retirement in 1950. The results of his studies are the large monographs on Paleozoic sedimentary ironstones (the one devoted to Galicia, 1922–1935, was published in four volumes with a total of 1,813 pp.), or the explanations to the geological map of Spain at a 1:1,000,000 scale (Cambrian System, 1934, 240 pp.; Silurian System –Ordovician included–, 1942, 848 pp.). In addition to other contributions on mineral raw materials, his papers include numerous Paleozoic regional studies, maps for the first cartographic series at a 1:50,000 scale and, above all, regional and systematic paleontological works. The latter were dedicated to Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian trilobites, graptolites, cephalopods, archaeocyathids and ichnofossils, as well as to Carboniferous mollusks. His interest in the Paleozoic and the geology of northwestern Spain were the main subjects of his reception at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain (1934: Geology of Galicia) and of the inaugural address of the 1953/54 course at the same institution (Paleozoic marine life. Fossil remains). A monograph on Spanish graptolites was published in 1960 as a posthumous paper of the author. To the research work of Hernández-Sampelayo we must add his personal interest to form a museum to exhibit the mineralogical, paleontological and petrological diversity of Spain. As a result of his know-how, he established the current Geominero Museum in the great hall of the headquarters of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, where it was held the XIV International Geological Congress of 1926.