Cesare Emiliani (8 December 1922 – 20 July 1995) was an Italian-American scientist,

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 ...

micropaleontologist Micropaleontology (American spelling; spelled micropalaeontology in European usage) is the branch of paleontology ( palaeontology) that studies microfossils, or fossils that require the use of a microscope to see the organism, its morphology and ...

, and founder of

paleoceanography Paleoceanography is the study of the history of the oceans in the geologic past with regard to circulation, chemistry, biology, geology and patterns of sedimentation and biological productivity. Paleoceanographic studies using environment models ...

, developing the timescale of

marine isotope stage Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data f ...

s, which despite modifications remains in use today. He established that the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

s of the last half million years or so are a

cyclic Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in so ...

phenomenon, which gave strong support to the hypothesis of Milankovitch and revolutionized ideas about the history of the oceans and of the

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate bet ...

s. He was also the proponent of Project "LOCO" (for Long Cores) to the

U.S. National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

. The project was a success providing evidence of the history of the oceans and also serving to test the hypotheses of

seafloor spreading Seafloor spreading or Seafloor spread is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. History of study Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener a ...

and

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label= Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of larg ...

. Cesare Emiliani was honored by having the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Emiliania'' erected as home for the

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

'' huxleyi'', which had previously been assigned to ''

Coccolithus ''Coccolithus'' is a genus of unicellular haptophytes. Species The species in this genus include: *'' Coccolithus oceanicus'' *'' Coccolithus pelagicus'' *'' Coccolithus pliopelagicus'' References External links Imagesof ''Coccolithus' ...

''. He was further honored by receiving the

Vega Medal The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; sv, Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) is a scientific learned society founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropo ...

of the

Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; sv, Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) is a scientific learned society founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropo ...

(SSAG) (Swedish: Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) in 1983, and the

Alexander Agassiz Medal The Alexander Agassiz Medal is awarded every three years by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for an original contribution in the science of oceanography. It was established in 1911 by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend, the scientist Ale ...

of the U.S.

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1989 for his isotopic studies on

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

and

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

planktic Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a cruc ...

foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly ...

. In his later years, he dedicated a great deal of time to promoting a

calendar reform Calendar reform or calendrical reform is any significant revision of a calendar system. The term sometimes is used instead for a proposal to switch to a different calendar design. Principles The prime objective of a calendar is to unambiguo ...

based on the

Holocene calendar The Holocene calendar, also known as the Holocene Era or Human Era (HE), is a year numbering system that adds exactly 10,000 years to the currently dominant ( AD/ BC or CE/ BCE) numbering scheme, placing its first year near the beginning of th ...

(HE) concept to eliminate the BC–AD

chronology Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , ''-logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of even ...

gap caused by the lack of a

year 0 A year zero does not exist in the Anno Domini (AD) calendar year system commonly used to number years in the Gregorian calendar (nor in its predecessor, the Julian calendar); in this system, the year is followed directly by year . However, the ...

Biography

Cesare Emiliani was born in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. His parents were Luigi and Maria (Manfredini) Emiliani. Emiliani studied geology at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in contin ...

in post-war

and earned his degree in Geology (micropaleontology) also at Bologna in 1945. After graduation he worked as a micropaleontologist with the Società Idrocarburi Nazionali in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

from 1946–48. In 1948 he was offered and accepted the Rollin D. Salisbury Fellowship in the Department of Geology at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

where he subsequently obtained his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in Geology (isotopic

paleoclimatology Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

) in 1950. From 1950 to 1956 he was Research Associate in

Harold Urey Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in th ...

’s

Geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing th ...

Laboratory in the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies at the

. In 1957 Cesare Emiliani was working on

Foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly ...

(microscopic protists whose remains are greatly abundant in the fossil record) and was particularly interested in great climate changes known to have occurred during the Pleistocene Age. He was sure these tiny shells deposited in the ubiquitous ooze that coats the sea bottom held important clues. For that reason he was looking at the time for a place to work where there were ships and trained personnel to help him to obtain core samples of the deep-sea sediments for his studies. An interview with Dr. Walton Smith convinced Cesare that the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

’s Institute of Marine Science, which was renamed the

Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS ) is the University of Miami's academic and research institution for the study of oceanography and atmospheric sciences. Founded in 1943, the University of Miami's Rosenstiel Schoo ...

, was the right place to conduct his research and thus he moved there that same year. In 1967 he was named Chairman of the Division of Geology and Geophysics at the Institute. At that time he organized the department of Geological Sciences on the main campus of the

and remained its Chairman until his retirement in 1993. He died in

Palm Beach Gardens Palm Beach Gardens is a city in Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida, 77 miles north of downtown Miami. , the population was 59,182. Palm Beach Gardens is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6 ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

in 1995 and was survived by his wife Rosita (1923–2010) and two children, Mario and Sandra, and four grandchildren, Michael, Julia, Joey, and Dante. Memorial tributes were written by colleague
Barbara Lidz
and
William Hay and Eloise Zakevich

Works

* Emiliani, Cesare. (1992). ''Planet Earth : Cosmology, Geology, & the Evolution of Life & the Environment''. Cambridge University Press. (Paperback Edition ) * Emiliani, Cesare. (1995). ''The Scientific Companion : Exploring the Physical World with Facts, Figures, and Formulas (Wiley Popular Science) (2nd Edition)''. Wiley. (Paperback Edition ) * Emiliani, Cesare. (1993). ''Dictionary of Physical Sciences''. Oxford University Press. (Paperback Edition )

Scientific

* Emiliani C (1954) ''Depth habitats of some species of pelagic foraminifera as indicated by oxygen isotope ratios''. American Journal of Science 252:149–158 * Emiliani C (1954) ''Temperature of Pacific bottom waters and polar superficial waters during the Tertiary''. Science 119:853–855 * Emiliani C (1956) ''Oligocene and Miocene temperature of the equatorial and subtropical Atlantic Ocean''. Journal of Geology 64:281–288 * Emiliani C (1956) ''On paleotemperatures of Pacific bottom waters''. Science 123:460–461 * Emiliani C (1957) ''Temperature and age analysis of deepsea cores''. Science 125:383–385 * Emiliani C (1961) ''The temperature decrease of surface water in high latitudes and of abyssal-hadal water in open oceanic basins during the past 75 million years''. Deep-Sea Research 8:144–147 * Emiliani C (1965) ''Precipitous continental clopes and considerations on the transitional crust''. Science 147:145–148 * Emiliani C (1966) ''Isotopic paleotemperatures''. Science 154: 851–857 * Emiliani C (1966). ''Paleotemperature analysis of Caribbean cores P6304-8 and P6304-9 and a generalized temperature curve for the past 425,000 years''. Journal of Geology 74:109–124 * Emiliani C (1968) ''The Pleistocene epoch and the evolution of man''. Current Anthropology 9:27–47 * Emiliani C (1969) ''Interglacials, high sea levels and the control of Greenland ice by the precession of the equinoxes''. Science 166:1503–1504 * Emiliani C (1969) ''A new paleontology''. Micropaleontology 15:265–300 * Emiliani C (1970) ''Pleistocene paleotemperatures''. Science 168:822–825 * Emiliani C (1971) ''The amplitude of Pleistocene climatic cycles at low latitudes and the isotopic composition of glacial ice''. In: Turekian KK (ed) Late Cenozoic Glacial Ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp 183–197 * Emiliani C (1971) ''Depth habitats and growth stages of pelagic formanifera''. Science 173:1122–1124 * Emiliani C (1971) ''Paleotemperature variations across the Plio-Pleistocene boundary at the type section''. Science 171:600–602 * Emiliani C (1978) ''The cause of the ice ages''. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 37:347–354 * Emiliani C (1981) ''A new global geology''. In: Emiliani C (ed) The Oceanic Lithosphere. The Sea (8th edn). Vol. 7. New York: Wiley Interscience, pp 1687–738 * Emiliani C (1982) ''Extinctive evolution''. Journal of Theoretical Biology 97:13–33 * Emiliani C (1987) ''Dictionary of Physical Sciences''. Oxford: Oxford University Press * Emiliani C (1988) ''The Scientific Companion''. New York: Wiley * Emiliani C (1989) ''The new geology or the old role of the geological sciences in science education''. Journal of Geological Education 37:327–331 * Emiliani C (1991) ''Avogadro number and mole: a royal confusion''. Journal of Geological Education 39:31–33 * Emiliani C (1991) ''Planktic et al.'' Marine Micropaleontology 18:3 * Emiliani C (1991) ''Planktic/planktonic, nektic/nektonic, benthic/benthonic''. Journal of Paleontology 65:329 * Emiliani C, Ericson DB (1991) ''The glacial/interglacial temperature range of the surface water of the ocean at low latitudes''. In: Taylor HP, O’Neil JR, Kaplan IR (eds) Special Publication: Stable Isotope Geochemistry: A Tribute to Samuel Epstein. Pennsylvania: Geochemical Society, University Park, pp 223–228 * Emiliani C (1992) ''The Moon as a piece of Mercury''. Geologische Rundschau 81:791–794 * Emiliani C (1992) ''Planet Earth: Cosmology, Geology, and the Evolution of Life and Environment''. New York: Cambridge University Press * Emiliani C (1992) ''Pleistocene paleotemperatures''. Science 257:1188–1189 * Emiliani C (1993) ''Milankovitch theory verified; discussion''. Nature 364:583 * Emiliani C (1993) ''Calendar reform''. Nature 366:716 * Emiliani C (1993) ''Extinction and viruses''. BioSystems 31:155–159 * Emiliani C (1993) ''Paleoecological implications of Alaskan terrestrial vertebrate fauna in latest Cretaceous time at high paleolatitudes: Comment''. Geology 21:1151–1152 * Emiliani C (1993) ''Viral extinctions in deep-sea species''. Nature 366:217–218 * Emiliani C (1995) ''Redefinition of atomic mass unit, Avogadro constant, and mole''. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 59:1205–1206 * Emiliani C (1995) ''Tropical paleotemperatures: discussion''. Science 268:1264 * Emiliani C, Edwards G (1953) ''Tertiary ocean bottom temperatures''. Nature 171:887–888 * Emiliani C, Elliott I (1995) ''Vatican confusion''. Nature 375:530 * Emiliani C, Epstein S (1953) ''Temperature variations in the lower Pleistocene of Southern California''. Journal of Geology 61:171–181 * Emiliani C, Gartner S, Lidz B (1972) ''Neogene sedimentation on the Blake Plateau and the emergence of the Central American Isthmus''. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 11:1–10 * Emiliani C, Gartner S, Lidz B, Eldridge K, Elvey DK, Huang PC, Stipp JJ, Swanson M (1975) ''Paleoclimatological analysis of late Quaternary cores from the northwestern Gulf of Mexico''. Science 189:1083–1088 * Emiliani C, Geiss J (1959) ''On glaciations and their causes''. Geologische Rundschau 46:576–601 * Emiliani C, Harrison CG, Swanson M (1969) ''Underground nuclear explosions and the control of earthquakes''. Science 165:1255–1256 * Emiliani C, Kraus EB, Shoemaker EM (1981) ''Sudden death at the end of the Mesozoic''. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 55:327–334 * Emiliani C, Mayeda T, Selli R (1961) ''Paleotemperature analysis of the Plio-Pleistocene section at le Castella, Calabria, southern Italy''. Geological Society of America Bulletin 72:679–688 * Emiliani C, Milliman JD (1966) ''Deep-sea sediments and their geological record''. Earth-Science Reviews 1:105–132 * Emiliani C, Price DA, Seipp J (1991) ''Is the Postglacial artificial?'' In: Taylor HP, O’Neil JR, Kaplan IR (eds) Special Publication: Stable Isotope Geochemistry: A Tribute to Samuel Epstein. Pennsylvania: Geochemical Society, University Park, pp 229–231 * Emiliani C, Shackleton NJ (1974) ''The Brunhes Epoch: paleotemperature and geochronology''. Science 183:511–514

References

* http://www.soes.soton.ac.uk/staff/tt/eh/ce.html

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Cesare Emiliani and Donald R. Moore on 29 March 1990, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emiliani, Cesare 1922 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American geologists American paleontologists 20th-century Italian geologists Italian paleontologists Scientists from Bologna University of Miami faculty University of Bologna alumni Micropaleontologists Italian emigrants to the United States

Biography

Works

Popular

Scientific

See also

References

External links