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On Octobre, 25th, 2003, Prof. Dr. Werner Zeil died, nearly 84 years of age. The geologist Werner Zeil was a promotor of interdisciplinary geoscience, his spectrum of knowledge ranged from biostratigraphy and sedimentology to magmatic petrology and geotectonics, and from the time periods Precambrian to the Quaternary. Active orogens, like the Alps and the Andes, held a lifetime of fascination for him.

Werner Zeil studied geology in Göttingen and Munich, where he received the Diplom in 1948. Also in Munich, he achieved his doctorate in 1951 and his habilitation in 1954. In this time the focus of his research were the Eastern Alps. After a period as visiting professor in Heidelberg 1957/58, he accepted the offer of a full professor position at the Technical University in Berlin in 1960. He became an emeritus professor in 1985.

After World War II, Werner Zeil was among the first who reestablished the longstanding German-Latinamerican cooperation in geoscience. First connections to the German Embassy in Chile and especially a cooperation with Prof. Humberto Fuenzalida from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago led to a swiftly growing net of personal contacts. The first of a large number of research journeys to South America in 1956 was on board of a cargo ship. His first publication from the Andes was an evaluation of the geothermal field El Tatio in 1959. In 1962, Werner Zeil initiated a DAAD-supported exchange program of lecturers in cooperation with the Universidad de Chile. During ten years, numerous young German geologists worked in South America, people who coined Andean geoscience in Germany for decades.

The idea to intensivate German Geoscience in the Andes originated from the International Alfred Wegener Symposium in Berlin 1980. Together with Peter Giese, Werner Zeil headed the DFG Research Group “Mobility of active continental margins: the Andean geotraverse” from 1982 to 1990, a cooperation of the Technical and Free Universities of Berlin with numerous institutions in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. In this framework many young Latinamerican research fellows came to Berlin.

Belles-lettres was very important to Werner Zeil to balance his scientific interests. In the field of geology, he authored over 70 publications, and 4 books (Geologie von Chile, The Andes – A geological review, Geologie von Südamerika, Abriss der Geologie (issues 11 bis 14)). As an editor of the “Geologische Rundschau” (1957–59 and 1964–77) and of “Geotektonische Forschungen” (1971–86) he contributed to the modernization and improvement of geoscientific literature in Germany. Dr. Zeil was president of the “Geologische Vereinigung” from 1982 to 1986, and he became its honorary member in 1993.

Prof. Dr. Werner Zeil was a committed and remarkable teacher, who encouraged his students to work indepentently and critically. Conversations with him about geology were stimulating, occasionally with flashes of irony. Werner Zeil was a caring and loyal project leader, his straightforwardness and independence of judgement exemplary.

December 2003,

Heinrich Bahlburg (Münster), Christoph Breitkreuz (Freiberg), Guillermo Chong (Antofagasta), Hermann Jurgan (Isernhagen)