Albert Heim

Albert Heim was a Swiss geologist, born in Zürich in 1849 and noted for his three-volume Geologie der Schweiz. As a boy he made a model of the Tödi group of the Alps, which brought him the encouragement and field instruction of Arnold Escher von der Linth. He became professor of geology at the polytechnic school in Zürich in 1873 and at the university in 1875, and in 1882 he was appointed director of the Geological Survey of Switzerland. He was especially distinguished for his researches on the structure of the Alps, which he illustrated with sections and pictorial drawings of the folds and overthrust faults. His Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung of 1878 is regarded as a classic. He first read the Glarus Alps as the product of folding alone rather than a major thrust fault, an error he acknowledged in 1901. He also studied glacial phenomena, and the Heim coefficient for the friction of pyroclastic flows and avalanches is named after him. He died in 1937.