Leopold Kober (21 September 1883 – 6 September 1970), an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

, proposed a number of (subsequently largely discredited) theories of

orogeny Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An '' orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted ...

and coined the term '' kratogen'' to describe stable continental crust, which was later shortened to ''kraton'' by

Hans Stille Hans Wilhelm Stille (8 October 1876 – 26 December 1966) was an influential German geologist working primarily on tectonics and the collation of tectonic events during the Phanerozoic. Stille adhered to the contracting Earth hypothesis A ...

. Kober, developing geosyncline theory, posited that stable blocks known as forelands move toward each other forcing the sediments of the intervening geosynclinal region to move over the forelands and forming marginal mountain ranges known as ''Randketten'', while leaving an intervening median mass known as the ''Zwischengebirge''. Linton, D. L. & Mosely, F. (1970), 'The Geological Ages', in the ''Cambridge Ancient History'', vol. 1A., pp. 17–18.

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

References

20th-century Austrian geologists Tectonicists 1883 births 1970 deaths {{Geologist-stub