Hans-Ulrich Schmincke

Laacher See, a German caldera lake, researched by H.-U. Schmincke

Hans-Ulrich Schmincke (21 October 1937 – 24 August 2024) was a German volcanologist, who published over 300 books and scientific papers over the course of his career. He was awarded the Thorarinsson Medal of the International Association of Volcanology (IAVCEI) in 1993, and the Steinmann Medal of the German Geological Association in 2012.

Early life and education Hans-Ulrich Schmincke was born in Detmold, German Reich in 1937. Between 1957 and 1964, Schmincke studied Geology and Petrology at universities in Germany, and then the USA, including University of Göttingen, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, and RWTH Aachen. He completed his doctoral research between 1962 and 1964 at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Santa Barbara,

Employment and research Schmincke returned to Germany in late 1964, and was a research fellow at the University of Tübingen in 1964–65 and at the University of Heidelberg 1965–1969. He was involved in an Icelandic Research Drilling project, which drilled through the Icelandic crust near Reyðarfjörður in 1978. He also worked with the International Crustal Drilling Research Group, on a related drilling project called the Cyprus Crustal Study Project, which drilled at a number of sites across the Troodos ophiolite, Cyprus, between 1982 and 1985.

For many years, Schmincke worked on the volcanology of the Canary Islands, and was co-chief scientist of Ocean Drilling Programme (ODP) leg 157, which cored parts of the Atlantic ocean sea-floor and abyssal plain off the Canary Islands in 1994.

In Germany, Schmincke carried out research on the pyroclastic sequences of the Eifel volcanic district over many years, in particular the Laacher See volcano.

Further afield, he worked on volcanic deposits in Central America, and in 1993, carried out fieldwork in China at Paektusan volcano. Schmincke was one of the first European scientists to study this large caldera volcano.

He published over 300 scientific articles in volcanology and petrology through his career.

Honours Schmincke received multiple national and international awards in recognition of his work. These include the Norman L. Bowen Award of the American Geophysical Union in 1985; the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft) in 1991; the Thorarinsson Medal of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior in 1993; the Hans-Stille Medal in 2001, and the Gustav-Steinmann Medal of the German Geological Association in 2012.

Selected publications Schmincke was co-author with RV Fisher of the book Pyroclastic Rocks, in 1984. His popular book Volcanism was first published in 1986 under the German title "Vulkanismus". This was later published as second edition in 2000 with translations into English (2004) and Japanese (2009); there was a third edition in 2010.

English version: Hans-Ulrich Schmincke: Volcanism, scientific book company 2000,