Memorial to Alexander Volker Altenbach (1953–2015)

• Published in: The Journal of Foraminiferal Research
• Main Authors: Schiebel, Ralf, Schönfeld, Joachim, Struck, Ulrich
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research 2016
• Subjects: Planktonic foraminifera
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/31570/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/31570/1/Schiebel.pdf; https://doi.org/10.2113/gsjfr.46.1.4

Alexander Volker Altenbach was born in 1953 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Alex attended school in Königstein/Taunus, where he passed his Abitur in 1974. He then studied Geology and Paleontology at Goethe University, Frankfurt. During an internship on an oil rig in Denmark, he first experienced a professional working environment and the adventures of hydrocarbon exploration in the North Sea. For his diploma thesis Alex worked on the stratigraphy and tectonics of the Sierra de Montgai, in the Pyrenees, Spain, under the supervision of Rolf Schroeder, Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt/M. The subject comprised a genuine geological mapping exercise and biostratigraphic dating of the exposed formations. Stratigraphic ages were determined with the Mesozoic orbitoids and planktonic foraminifera in thin sections. Alex shared the long travels to Spain with his two companions Hans-Joachim Wallrabe-Adams (aka Kolli) and Peter Brinnel, enjoying an old “concha naranja” Volkswagen van, as well as field work in the spectacular scenery of the Sierra de Montsec, and living the Catalonian lifestyle. As late as 1993, the theme of Alex’s habilitation defense again was the geology of the Sierra de Montsec, for which he had kept his fascination (cf. Wallrabe-Adams et al., 2005). Being challenged by disentangling the complicated tectonic structure of the Sierra de Montgai, Alex learnt Fortran78 to produce a virtual Schmid net on the central university computer, visualizing different deformation styles of the different tectonic units. His early professional computer programming probably gave rise to his later endeavor in computing. Attracted by the developments in Marine Geosciences at Kiel University during the early 1980s, Alex joined the Micropaleontology Group of Gerhard Friedrich Lutze, and commenced …