Cesare Emiliani facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Cesare Emiliani
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Emiliani in the early 1950s while conducting pioneering research at the University of Chicago. (Photo: Archives of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami)
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| Born | 8 December 1922 Bologna, Italy
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| Died | 20 July 1995 (aged 72) Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States
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| Nationality | Italian |
| Citizenship | Italy and United States |
| Alma mater | University of Bologna University of Chicago |
| Known for | Developing the timescale of marine isotope stages |
| Spouse(s) |
Rosita
(m. 1951) |
| Children | 2 |
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| Scientific career | |
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Cesare Emiliani (born December 8, 1922 – died July 20, 1995) was an important Italian-American scientist. He was a geologist and a micropaleontologist. He also founded the study of paleoceanography. This is the study of the history of the oceans.
Emiliani created a timeline for marine isotope stages. These stages help us understand past climate changes. His work, even with some updates, is still used today. He showed that the ice ages over the last half-million years happened in a regular pattern. This pattern is called a Milankovich cycle. This discovery strongly supported the ideas of Milutin Milanković. It completely changed how scientists thought about the history of oceans and glaciations (ice ages).
He also led a project called "LOCO" (for Long Cores). This project helped collect long samples from the deep sea floor. These samples gave important clues about the ocean's history. They also helped test ideas like seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.
Cesare Emiliani was honored in many ways. A tiny ocean plant, Emiliania, was named after him. He also received the Vega Medal in 1983 and the Alexander Agassiz Medal in 1989. These awards recognized his studies of tiny ocean fossils. He used these fossils to understand Earth's climate during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods.
Later in his life, Emiliani worked on a calendar reform. He wanted to create a Holocene calendar (HE). This new calendar would fix the problem of the BC–AD system. It would remove the gap caused by not having a year 0.
Contents
Biography
Cesare Emiliani was born in Bologna, Italy. His parents were Luigi and Maria Emiliani.
He studied geology at the University of Bologna after World War II. He earned his degree in Geology, focusing on micropaleontology, in 1945. After graduating, he worked as a micropaleontologist in Florence from 1946 to 1948.
In 1948, he moved to the United States. He accepted a fellowship at the University of Chicago. There, he earned his PhD in Geology in 1950. His PhD focused on how isotopes can tell us about past climates. From 1950 to 1956, he worked at the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. He was part of Harold Urey’s Geochemistry Laboratory at the University of Chicago.
In 1957, Cesare Emiliani was studying Foraminifera. These are tiny sea creatures whose shells are found in fossils. He was very interested in the big climate changes that happened during the Pleistocene Age. He believed these tiny shells, found in the mud at the bottom of the sea, held important secrets.
He needed a place to work that had ships and trained people. This would help him get deep-sea sediment samples for his research. He found the perfect place at the University of Miami’s Institute of Marine Science. This institute was later renamed the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. He moved there in 1957.
In 1967, he became the head of the Geology and Geophysics Division at the Institute. He also started the Department of Geological Sciences at the main campus of the University of Miami. He remained its chairman until he retired in 1993.
Cesare Emiliani passed away in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida in 1995. He was survived by his wife, Rosita, and their two children, Mario and Sandra. He also had four grandchildren: Michael, Julia, Joey, and Dante.
Works
Popular Books
- Emiliani, Cesare. (1992). Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology, & the Evolution of Life & the Environment. This book explores the universe, Earth's geology, and how life and the environment have changed over time.
- Emiliani, Cesare. (1995). The Scientific Companion: Exploring the Physical World with Facts, Figures, and Formulas (2nd Edition). This guide helps readers understand the physical world using scientific facts and formulas.
- Emiliani, Cesare. (1993). Dictionary of Physical Sciences. This dictionary provides definitions for terms in the physical sciences.
See also
In Spanish: Cesare Emiliani para niños
- Paleoceanography
- Holocene calendar
