Alexander von Volborth/Aleksandr Fedorovich von Volborth (born 1800,

Mogilev Mogilev (; , ), also transliterated as Mahilyow (, ), is a city in eastern Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, about from the Belarus–Russia border, border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from Bryansk Oblast. As of 2024, ...

- died 1876,

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

), was a Russian palaeontologist.

Volborthite Volborthite is a mineral containing copper and vanadium, with the chemical formula, formula copper, Cu3vanadium, V2oxygen, O7(Ohydrogen, H)2·2water, H2O. Found originally in 1838 in the Urals, it was first named knaufite but was later changed to ...

, a mineral containing

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

and

vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an ...

and first found in 1838 at the Sofronovskii Copper Mine near

Perm Perm or PERM may refer to: Places * Perm, Russia, a city in Russia **Permsky District, the district **Perm Krai, a federal subject of Russia since 2005 **Perm Oblast, a former federal subject of Russia 1938–2005 ** Perm Governorate, an administr ...

in the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

, was named after him.

Biography

Alexander Folbort was born on January 11 (22), 1800 in the city

into the family of a pastor, Dr. Friedrich Folbort and Evdokia Kurganskaya, a daughter of a Russian priest. At the end of the course at Peter and Paul School in

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery. He returned to the Russian capital, Folbort, after passing the exam at the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy, in 1827 he entered the service at the Mariinsky Hospital. Later, Alexander Fedorovich Folbort worked at the Obukhov hospital, from which he was transferred to serve in the maritime department for the medical unit. In 1833, Folbort, following an exam at IMSA, was promoted to the rank of adjunct professor, and in 1844 he was appointed an intern at the St. Petersburg Naval Hospital and held this position until 1848. On June 11, 1847, he was granted the rank of

State Councilor A State Councillor of the People's Republic of China () serves as a senior vice leader within the State Council and shares responsibilities with the Vice Premiers in assisting the Premier in the administration and coordination of governmental a ...

. In 1851, A.F. Folbort was appointed to the 1st flipper crew, and in 1854 he was dismissed from service for family reasons. The reason for his leaving the medical service was that Folbort from a young age had a passion for

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

and

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

seemed to him only a necessary aid in their study. In the 1830s, A. Folbort began to zealously engage in mineralogy and compiled a rich mineralogical collection. Mineralogy owes him the discovery he made in 1838 of vanadium-acid copper, which forms a rare, but now well-known mineral, which was named by Academician Hess "''folbortite''" in honor of the scientist. Folbort then took up paleontology and subsequently devoted the rest of his life to it; this was facilitated by his summer stays in Pavlovsk, the surroundings of which, rich in plate fractures, cliffs and profiles of the Earth's crust, provided him with rare material for his scientific studies. Folbort collected an extensive collection of fossils of the Lower Silurian system in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. According to the wish expressed by Folbort, the paleontological collection he had collected over the course of 40 years, as well as the extensive mineralogical collection, after his death, entered the

Imperial Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

, which decided to store them in its mineralogical museum separately under the name "'' Collections of A.F. Folbort''». Folbort's services to Russian science were especially manifested in the field of paleontology, one of the most prominent figures of which he is recognized by all. In honor of him, the famous paleontologist V. I. Meller named in 1873 a new species of fossil brachiopods "Volborthia". Folbort's special works are published in the editions of Imperial Mineralogical Society and

Petersburg Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

, of which he was elected a corresponding member in 1863. Folbort was also an active member of the Mineralogical Society and in 1868 he was elected an honorary member. In addition, from September 17, 1846, he was a full member of the

Moscow Society of Naturalists Moscow Society of Naturalists () is one of Russia's oldest learned societies. In 1805 it was founded as the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow () under the auspices of two noblemen, Mikhail Muravyov and Alexis Razumovsky, by Johann Fi ...

, from December 23, 1846, a full member of the

Imperial Russian Geographical Society The Russian Geographical Society (), or RGO, is a learned society based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It promotes geography, exploration and nature protection with research programs in fields including oceanography, ethnography, ecology and stati ...

, and from 4 October 1873, an indispensable member of the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, which is affiliated with

Imperial Moscow University Imperial Moscow University () was one of the oldest universities of the Russian Empire, established in 1755. It was the first of the twelve imperial universities of the Russian Empire. Its legacy is continued as Lomonosov Moscow State Universit ...

. In the "Collection of the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society" for 1867, his study "''On cystoblasts, a new genus of sea lilies''" was placed, and in the "Notes of the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society" for 1870 - "''On a new layer in Silurian system of St. Petersburg province'' and many others. dr. Alexander Fedorovich Folbort died on March 5 (17), 1876 in the city of

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

e. Buried at Volkovskoye Lutheran Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volborth, Alexander von 1800 births 1876 deaths Russian people of German descent Paleontologists from the Russian Empire