Edith Kristan-Tollmann facts for kids
Edith Kristan-Tollmann (born April 14, 1934, in Vienna; died August 25, 1995) was an amazing Austrian geologist and paleontologist. She was very productive and loved studying tiny fossils, especially foraminifera (which are like tiny sea creatures with shells) from the Triassic and Jurassic periods. These periods were when the ancient Tethys Ocean existed. Kristan-Tollmann published many scientific papers. She is also known for a big idea she developed with her husband, Alexander Tollmann. They suggested that a huge impact event (like a comet hitting Earth) caused many changes in human legends and societies. This idea is now known as Tollmann's hypothetical bolide.
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Life and Early Career
Edith Kristan-Tollmann's father was a school director. At first, she wanted to be a teacher too. She even got her high school diploma from a teacher-training school. But then, she decided to study geology, paleontology, and petrography in Vienna. She learned from famous professors like Othmar Kühn and Leopold Kober. In 1959, she earned her doctorate degree in geology and paleontology. That same year, she married her classmate, Alexander Tollmann. They had a son named Raoul in 1967. While studying, she also worked as a religion teacher.
Edith became an expert in micropaleontology, which is the study of tiny fossils. She focused on foraminifera from the Triassic and Jurassic periods. She discovered and described many new types of these tiny creatures. Besides foraminifera, she also studied ostracods (tiny crustaceans) and other microfossils. She also looked at larger invertebrate fossils like crinoids (sea lilies), corals, mollusks, brachiopods, and sea cucumbers. Crinoids were her special favorites!
From 1961 to 1968, she worked as a micropaleontologist for the OMV, an oil and gas company. She was also a visiting researcher in Sweden in 1966. Later, she was a Humboldt Fellow in Germany in 1971-1973, working at the Naturmuseum Senckenberg and the University of Frankfurt. From 1976 to 1978, she did research at the Natural History Museum Vienna. In 1982, she earned a special post-doctoral degree in micropaleontology. She then taught courses at universities in Graz and Innsbruck. Sadly, she passed away from cancer in 1995.
Worldwide Discoveries
Kristan-Tollmann collected samples from almost all over the Alps. In the 1970s, she traveled worldwide to collect more samples. She visited places like Turkey, Iran, China, Timor, New Guinea, Australia, Japan, and parts of North America, including Mexico. Some of these trips were quite risky. For example, in 1975, she barely escaped danger in East Timor. She often traveled alone but planned her trips very carefully.
A big part of her global work was connecting paleontological data from the Triassic Tethys and early Jurassic periods across different continents. She found surprising similarities in the ancient fauna (animals) and rock layers. This led to new ways of describing different types of fossils. Her work showed that many early fossils first found in Austria were actually the same as those found in other parts of the world, even if they had been described differently before.
Her research also changed ideas about how ocean currents moved in the Tethys Ocean. She suggested that tiny larvae could travel long distances as part of plankton in the water. For example, she explained why similar rock formations in the Alps and China from the Triassic period looked alike. She believed this was due to global changes in sea level. She also studied the boundary between the Tethys Ocean and another ancient ocean called Panthalassa in New Caledonia.
Kristan-Tollmann helped start the "Shallow Tethys" group. She helped organize their meetings, like the 4th Congress in 1994. In 1991, she also organized a meeting for German-speaking ostracod researchers.
She wrote about 120 scientific papers and was the first to describe around 500 new types of ancient life forms. Her publications covered foraminifera, ostracods, echinoderms, and tiny calcareous nannofossils. Her collection mainly shows her work on foraminifera from the Triassic and Lower Jurassic. She described new genera like Variostoma and Duostomina from the Triassic, and Scyphodon from the Silurian. While her early work focused on the Alps, later studies included Triassic fossils from Iran, India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Papua-New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. She discussed how these ancient creatures were classified and where they were found across the Tethys region.
From 1978 to 1992, she and her husband published the news for the Austrian Geological Society. She also served on the Advisory Board of the Paleontological Society from 1975 to 1977 and again from 1990 to 1992.
Big Impact Ideas
Edith Kristan-Tollmann was interested in history, religion, and archaeology since she was young. In 1992, she and her husband Alexander Tollmann published an article. They suggested that around 7,500 BCE, a huge disaster happened when a comet hit Earth. They believed the comet broke into seven pieces, hitting seven different places. They said this event was recorded in the myths and religious stories of many cultures.
In 1993, they wrote a book about this idea called Und die Sintflut gab es doch: vom Mythos zur historischen Wahrheit (And The Flood Did Exist: From the Myth to the Historical Truth). This book became very popular in Austria and Germany. They claimed that this disaster, known as Tollmann's hypothetical bolide, led to the creation of priests, world religions, the Christian Genesis flood narrative (the story of Noah's Ark), the myth of Atlantis, and many other things. They were inspired by the Alvarez hypothesis, which suggested a meteorite impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. They also thought that such impacts might happen every 10,000 years or so. They pointed to dust layers in Antarctic ice cores from about 17,000 to 18,000 years ago as a sign of a past impact that might have helped end the last ice age.
Their ideas caused a lot of debate among other scientists. Some thought the Tollmanns stretched their interpretations too far. However, the idea of a comet impact around the time they suggested has not been completely disproven. After her death, another book she co-authored with Alexander Tollmann, Das Weltenjahr geht zu Ende, was published. In it, they discussed prophecies, including those of Nostradamus.
Caring for the Planet
Kristan-Tollmann was very active in movements against nuclear power and for protecting the environment. Her husband also played a big role in Green politics in Austria. In their book Und die Sintflut gab es doch, they also warned about the dangers of nuclear power plants around the world. They especially worried about the risks from earthquakes or comet impacts.
Selected Writings
- "Rotaliidea (Foraminifera) aus der Trias der Ostalpen" (1960)
- Entwicklungsreihen der Triasforaminiferen (1963)
- Zur Charakteristik triadischer Mikrofaunen (1964)
- Die Foraminiferen aus den rhätischen Zlambachmergeln der Fischerwiese bei Aussee im Salzkammergut (1964)
- "Die Entwicklung der Tethystrias und Herkunft ihrer Fauna" (1982)
With Alexander Tollmann
- Die Stellung der Tethys in der Trias und die Herkunft ihrer Fauna (1981/82)
- Paleogeography of the European Tethys from Paleozoic to Mesozoic and the Triassic Relations of the Eastern Part of Tethys and Panthalassa (1985)
- "How did they manage to travel the World 230 million years ago?" (1985)
- Und die Sintflut gab es doch. Vom Mythos zur historischen Wahrheit (1993)
- "The youngest big impact on Earth deduced from geological and historical evidence" (1994)
