Heinz A. Lowenstam

Early life and education

Heinz Adolf Lowenstam was born in 1912 in Upper Silesia, which was then southeastern Germany but was ceded to Poland following World War I. His father, Kurt (1883–1965), was the younger brother of Rabbi Arthur Löwenstamm. His mother was Frieda Sternberg (born in 1889). He had a younger sister, Hildegard (Hilda), who married Kurt Weissenberg and had a daughter, Doris.

Heinz's hometown of Siemjanowicz was located in a mining district, and his fascination with geology began as a child playing on the piles of mine tailings, against the backdrop of Germany's great economic depression of the 1920s. His scientific interests were encouraged by his family and fostered through his attendance at an experimental hochschule that focused on mathematics, physics, and chemistry. It was here that Heinz started his first fossil collection and shaped his desire to become a paleontologist.

Professional career

Lowenstam began his collegiate studies in the vertebrate paleontology program at the University of Frankfurt, but arrived to find the program collapsing due to the recent death of the university's leading paleontologist. He transferred to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in the fall of 1933, studying under Professors Broili, Edgar Dacqué, and the biologist Karl von Frisch. Lowenstam's studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München coincided with Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the deterioration of conditions for German Jews. According to his biographer, Joseph L. Kirschvink, "In 1935, he declared his intention of conducting his Ph.D. field research in Palestine, to the dismay of his pro-Nazi department chairman".

Lowenstam discussed his situation with the geology faculty at the University of Chicago, and was accepted to complete his degree, on the merit of recommendations from his mentors Broili and Dacqué. He received his Ph.D. in 1939, whereupon he immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight the Nazis. The U.S. military decided that his skills would be of more use in civilian work, developing coal and oil reserves with the Illinois Geological Survey. Subsequently, Lowenstam worked for a small oil company, then moved on to become a curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Illinois State Museum. There, Lowenstam conducted field research on the paleoecology of coral reef environments via the Stony Island line of the Chicago street-car system, which dead-ended at an area rich with fossilized coral reefs. This work ultimately resulted in Lowenstam's discovery of a "massive system of Silurian reefs that stretched from the edge of the Ozark Mountains to Greenland". "Prior to this discovery, magnetite was thought to form only in igneous or metamorphic rocks under high temperatures and pressures". and traveled to Germany in 1981 to receive an honorary Ph.D. from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He received the Paleontological Society Medal in 1986.

Personal life Heinz A. Lowenstam married Ilse Weil (1912–2011) in Munich on 10 January 1937; They had three children together: Ruth, Michael and Steven. Ruth's daughter, Lisa Goldstein, is a rabbi in New York City.

Legacy Lowenstam's papers are held at the California Institute of Technology. Every five years, the European Association of Geochemistry awards a Science Innovation Award medal named in Lowenstam's honour for work in biogeochemistry.