ALGIRDAS GAIGALAS
(1933 – 2009)
Sud den and pre ma ture death of Lith u a nian hon or ary mem ber of the Geo log i cal So ci ety of Po land, Pro fes sor Algirdas Gaigalas on June 4th, 2009 in Vilnius, was a pain ful shock for his Pol ish co-work ers and friends.
Born on 27th Feb ru ary 1933 in Gaižunai near Pakruojis (northern Lith u a nia), he grad u ated in ge ol ogy from the Vilnius Uni -ver sity in 1957 and was em ployed in the Lith u a nian In sti tute of Ge ol ogy and Ge og ra phy, be ing since 1971 in charge of the head of its sev eral de part ments. Since 1978 till his de cease, A. Gaigalas was also de liv er ing lec tures in sev eral dis ci plines for stu dents of ge ol ogy of the Vilnius Uni ver sity in charge of its pro fes sor and later (1995–2003) also of the Vilnius Ped a gog i cal Uni ver sity. His doc toral dis ser ta tion (1977) was de voted to the the ory of for ma -tion of litho-sed i men tary cy cles of Pleis to cene gla cial de pos its in Lith u a nia and ad ja cent coun tries. This prob lem was fur ther de vel -oped in his ha bil i ta tion the sis (1986).
Prof. Gaigalas was un ques tion ably one of the most em i nent Qua ter nary ge ol o gists of peri-Bal tic coun tries. He de vel oped pe-trographic method of in ves ti ga tions of mo raine de pos its, ini ti ated by Stanis³aw Ma³kowski’s school (A. Jaroszewicz-K³yszyñska-Halicka, V. Èepulytë, A. Korybut-Daszkiewicz, and oth ers) at the Stefan Batory Uni ver sity, sup ple ment ing them by mod ern geo -chem i cal, palaeomagnetic, geo chron ol ogi cal and iso to pic stud ies. Con se quently, A. Gaigalas could elab o rate a re vised strati graphic and palaeogeographic scheme of the peri-Bal tic Late Pleis to cene de pos its. He was also one of the first re search ers of mo raines and bur ied palaeovalleys oc cur ring at the Bal tic Sea floor, de scrib ing also typ i cal boul ders found there.
Prof. Gaigalas was one of the main Lith u a nian ac tiv ists in the pro tec tion of na ture, con trib ut ing sig nif i cantly to the cre ation of sev eral geo log i cal nat u ral re serves. As a tal ented ad vo cate of geo-sci ences he was long-time pres i dent of the Lith u a nian So ci ety of Nat u ral ists, ed it ing the monthly “Mokslas ir gyvenimas” (Sci ence and life). Very sig nif i cant was his ac tiv ity as sci en tific ed i tor of the main Lith u a nian geo log i cal-min er al og i cal pe ri od i cal
“Geolo-gija”. Be sides, he was a mem ber of ad vi sory board of in ter na tional
pe ri od i cal “Geochronometria”, ed ited by the Silesian Uni ver sity of Tech nol ogy, and of “En cy clo pe dia of Lith u a nia Mi nor”.
Sci en tific, ped a gogical and or ga ni za tional achieve ments of Algirdas Gaigalas were highly ap pre ci ated in Lith u a nia and other coun tries. Con se quently, he was elected the hon or ary mem ber of
the In ter na tional As so ci a tion for Qua ter nary Re search (INQUA) and the for eign mem ber of the Rus sian Acad emy of Nat u ral Sci ences. More over, he was nom i nated hon or ary mem ber of the geo -log i cal so ci et ies of Lith u a nia and Po land and of the As so ci a tion of Pol ish Geomorphologists.
Algirdas Gaigalas was one of the most ac tive Lith u a nian spe -cial ists in the his tory of geosciences, be ing since 2006 the mem ber of In ter na tional Com mis sion on the His tory of Geo log i cal Sci -ences. His pub li ca tions in this field ap peared al ready in 1969 and 1972 and were de voted to the his tory of ge ol ogy in the Vilnius ac -a demic cen ter since the 19th cen tury, mainly to petrographic and other stud ies of Qua ter nary de pos its by Pol ish and Lith u a nian ge -ol o gists of S. Batory Uni ver sity (now Vilnius Uni ver sity). In this pe riod he was co op er at ing with geoscientists of the Mu seum of the Earth in War saw, Zbigniew Wójcik and Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz. It should be em pha sized that this Mu seum was at that time di rected by Stanis³aw Ma³kowski and, af ter wards, by Anto-nina Halicka. A. Gaigalas was also the au thor of a sce nario of the geo log i cal part of his tor i cal ex po si tion or ga nized dur ing the cel e -bra tions of the 400th an ni ver sary of the Vilnius Uni ver sity and of the pa per on ge ol ogy at the S. Batory Uni ver sity in the mono graph “Geologija Vilniaus Universitete”, ed ited in Lith u a nian in 2003. One year later he pub lished, also in Lith u a nian, a pa per de scrib ing the geo log i cal col lec tions of the old Vilnius Uni ver sity based on the anal y sis of Ignacy Jakowicki’s cat a logue.
As fol lows from these and other pub li ca tions, the in ter est in the his tory of his par ent Uni ver sity and the con tacts with Pol ish geoscientists were also vivid af ter Lith u a nia had re cov ered its in -de pend ence. In 1995, A. Gaigalas was one of the main or ga niz ers of a Lith u a nian-Pol ish sym po sium de voted to ge ol o gist Czes³aw Pachucki (Èeslovas Pakuckas), pro fes sor of the Lith u a nian uni ver -si ties in Kaunas and Vilnius, who, for the sec ond pe riod of his life, was liv ing and work ing in Po land as pro fes sor of the uni ver si ties in Wroc³aw and Lublin.
In the last two de cades his co op er a tion with Pol ish spe cial ists in Qua ter nary ge ol ogy, mod ern meth ods of geo chron ol ogy and iso tope anal y sis was dis tinctly in ten si fied. This re fers, first of all, to the De part ment of Geo mor phol ogy and Qua ter nary Ge ol ogy of the Gdañsk Uni ver sity and the In sti tute of Phys ics of the Silesian Uni ver sity of Tech nol ogy in Gliwice, and also to the In sti tute of Phys ics of the Maria Cu rie-Sk³odowska Uni ver sity in Lublin, and the In sti tute of Ge og ra phy of the Miko³aj Kopernik Uni ver sity in Toruñ. This co op er a tion was man i fested by pub lish ing the ma jor ity of re sults of his re cent com mon in ves ti ga tions with Pol ish col -leagues in the al ready men tioned pe ri od i cal “Geochronometria”. It should be em pha sized that one of his last pa pers, de voted to the or i gin of Bal tic am ber on the ground of hy dro gen, car bon and sul -fur iso to pic data, ob tained by co-au thor Prof. Stanis³aw Ha³as, was also pub lished in this pe ri od i cal.
Very re cently, Prof. Gaigalas has also ini ti ated a fruit ful co -op er a tion with the In sti tute of Geo log i cal Sci ences of the Jagie-llonian Uni ver sity, namely with Prof. Al fred Uchman, spe cial ist in ichnology. The ef fect of their com mon re search works in Lith u a -nia dur ing five sea sons in 2003–2007 are sev eral pa pers pub lished mainly in in ter na tional pe ri od i cals, which ini ti ated ichnological in ves ti ga tions in this coun try. The re searches con cerned first of all Pleis to cene varved clays, as well as Neo gene, Late Pleis to cene and Ho lo cene flu vial sed i ments. More over, ad di tional re searches were made in Ho lo cene dunes of the Curonian spit and in the De vo nian sed i ments, the re sults of which are un der elab o ra tion.
KRONIKA POLSKIEGO TOWARZYSTWA GEOLOGICZNEGO
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KRONIKA POL SKIEGO TOWARZYSTWA GEO LOGIC ZNEGO
CHRONI CLE OF THE GEO LOGI CAL SO CI ETY OF POLAND
In mem ory of the Pol ish par tic i pants of these re searches, Prof. Gaigalas re mains as an open-minded, very ex pe ri enced re searcher and warmhearted man, whose fea ture was a pre pos sess ing hos pi -tal ity. He used to guide his vis i tors to his tor i cally re mark able places and pre sent ing for sev eral times dif fer ent views on many his tor i cal as pects, but al ways with a great re spect to dif fer ent opin ions and peo ple. His knowl edge of the Pol ish lan guage helped ad -di tion ally in con tacts with our coun try. It also fa cil i tated the stud ies of ar chi val ma te ri als con cern ing the his tory of geosciences at the par ent Vilnius Uni ver sity and the achieve ments of his Pol ish pre de ces sors in Qua ter nary ge ol ogy of this re gion.
With the un ex pected de cease of Prof. Algirdas Gaigalas his Pol ish co-work ers and col leagues have lost one of best Lith u a nian friends and a man of deeply hu man per son al ity, who for a long time will re main in our mem ory.
Wojciech Narêbski, Zbigniew Wójcik, Al fred Uchman
Se lected pub li ca tions by Prof. Algirdas Gaigalas
co-authored by Pol ish re search ers
Gaigalas, A., Kovalukh, N.N., Pazdur, A. & Pazdur, M.F., 1996. In ter pre ta tion of ra dio car bon data and iso to pic com po si tion of car bon ate de pos its from Vilnius en vi rons, Lith u a nia.
Geo-chronometria, 14: 121–129.
Gaigalas, A., Pazdur, A. & Pawlyta, J., 2001. Ra dio car bon age of Late Pleis to cene glaciogenic sed i ments in Jonionys sec tion of Merkine (Eemian) inter gla cial. Geochronometria, 20: 75–80. Gaigalas, A., Pazdur, A., Halas, S., Pawlyta, J. & Kazakauskas, V., 2001. Sta ble iso topes as re cord of cli ma tic changes of Daniglacial in Lith u a nia. Geochronometria, 20: 81–86. Gaigalas, A, & Fedorowicz, S. 2002. Thermoluminescence dates,
Mid and Late Pleis to cene ex po sures, East ern Lith u a nia.
Geologija, 38: 31–40.
Gaigalas, A., Fedorowicz, S., Racinkas, A. & BauzienÅ, J., 2003. Ac tiv ity of 137 Cs iso tope in diluvial soils of East Lith u a nian Up lands. Geologija, 42: 26–32.
Gaigalas, A. & Uchman, A., 2004. Trace fos sils form the Up per Pleis to cene varved clays S of Kaunas, Lith u a nia. Geologija, 45: 16–26.
Gaigalas, A., Dvareckas, V. & Florek, W., 2005. The in flu ence of tec tonic move ments on Lith u a nian rivers lon gi tu di nal pro files morphogenesis. In: Florek W. (ed.), Geologia i
geomorfolo-gia pobrze¿a po³udniowego Ba³tyku, 6: 273–284.
Gaigalas, A., Fedorowicz, S. & MeleëytÅ, M., 2005. TL dates of aquatic sandy sed i ments of Mid dle – Up per Pleis to cene in Lith u a nia. Geologija, 51: 39–50.
Gaigalas, A., San’ko, A., Pazdur, A., Pawlyta, J., Michczyñski, A. & BudenaitÅ, S., 2007. Bur ied oaks and malacofauna of Ho lo cene ox bow lake sed i ments in the Valakupiai sec tion, Lith u a -nia. Geologija, 58: 34–48.
Gaigalas, A., Graniczny, M., Satkunas, J. & Ur ban, H., 2008. Èeslovas Pakuckas (Czes³aw Pachucki): pi o neer of mod ern glaciomorphology in Lith u a nia and Po land. In: Grapes, R.H., Oldroyd, D. & Grigelis, A. (eds), His tory of Geo mor phol ogy
and Qua ter nary ge ol ogy. Geo log i cal So ci ety of Lon don, Spe -cial Pub li ca tion, 301: 141–147.
Gaigalas, A. & Fedorowicz, S., 2009. Co op er a tion be tween Gdañsk and Vilnius uni ver si ties in Pleis to cene geo chron ol -ogy in ves ti ga tions, Geologija, 51: 76–87.
Gaigalas, A. & Ha³as, S., 2009. Sta ble iso topes (H, C, S) and the or i gin of Bal tic am ber. Geochronometria, 33: 33–36. Pawlyta, J., Gaigalas, A., Michczyñski, A., Pazdur, A. & San’ko,
A., 2007. Time scale for cli ma tic events of Subboreal/Subat -lan tic Tran si tion Valakupiai site, Lith u a nia. Ra dio car bon, 49: 889–897.
Uchman, A., Gaigalas, A., MeleëytÅ, M. & Kazakauskas, V., 2007. Trace fos sil Asthenopodichnium lithuanicum isp. nov. from the Late Neo gene browncoal de pos its, Lith u a nia. Geo
-log i cal Quar terly, 50: 437–446.
Uchman, A., Gaigalas, A. & Kazakauskas, V., 2008. Trace fos sils from the Up per Pleis to cene glaciolacustrine lam i nated sed i -ments of Lith u a nia. Geologija, 50: 212–226.
Uchman, A., Kazakauskas, V. & Gaigalas, A., 2009. Trace fos sils from Late Pleis to cene lac us trine varve sed i ments in east ern Lith u a nia. Palaeo ge ogra phy, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoeco-
logy, 272: 199–211.
