On June 20th, 1920 Albert Einstein, Victor Moritz Goldschmidt and
others
made a geologic excursion to Snarøya to examine the rocks and enjoy
the day.
See
See aftenposten article (We excuse Aftenposten for
misspelling Goldschmidt's name.)
The exact location of the boat landing is somewhere on Langodden,
and difficult to get to,
due to private residences. So we have picked this site.
Everyone knows about Einstein, but now you can meet a giant in
geology,
Victor M. Goldschmidt, considered to be the Father of Modern
Geochemistry.
Victor Moritz Goldschmidt was born in Zürich in 1888 and moved as a
child to
Oslo in 1901 where his father became chair of the Chemistry
department at the
University of Oslo. He attended Vestheim Middle School and
quickly
learned Norwegian. In 1905 he and his family became Norwegian
citizens.
At the age of 23 he had his doctorate after studying contact
metamorphism in the
Oslo area. Three years later he became a professor of geology at
the university
and had his office at the Mineralogical Museum at Tøyen. His
pioneering work
with geochemistry within the earth has made him world famous among
geologists.
With his work and research life was good for Victor and he live in
a large house
near Holmenkollen. However, following the invasion of Norway,
Goldschmidt’s
Jewish background resulted in disastrous changes for him. During
two different
events the Gestapo had arrested him for deportation to
concentration camps in
Germany. Luckily Victor’s contacts saved him both times and the
underground
got him to Sweden where he later traveled to the United Kingdom.
After returning
to Oslo, Victor died on March 20th, 1947. His ashes are burried
with his parents at
Vestregravelund. His last wish was to be buried in an urn carved
from the stone
“olivine” found in great economic abundance in Sunnmøre.
See
wikopedia_olivine
or
olivine mineral
Victor apparently had a dry and sometime morbid humor. While in
London he
carried cyanide capsules in case of German invasion. A colleague
asked if he could
have some and Victor replied that cyanide was only for chemists,
mechanical
engineers had to use mechanical devises such as a rope. The cache
hide may
have humored Victor, but it is more certain that he would have had
constructive
criticism on its geological or mineralogical aspects.
As for the geology….the rocks here are Ordovician nodular
limetsones….formed in
a shallow warm sea about 450 to 500 million years ago. Thanks to
Einsteins theories,
I can imagine standing on a very distant planet and looking at this
sea with a powerful
telescope.
This cache is packed with the following goodies:
pencil, log book & sharpener
2 winne the pooh & Harry Potter sticker books
photo card set
5 assorted figures
Fantomet cards
Kodacolor rabbit puzzle
2 cheering fan paper clip/book marks
1 official geocache sticker
kids pencil & kids pen
There is a lot of new construction around Fornebu that so
old familiar
roads may not be in function...however, it is possible to park
near the cache