Elie Gagnebin was a Swiss geologist. He was professor at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Background
Elie Gagnebin was born on February 4, 1891, in Liege, Belgium. He was the eleventh of the twelve children of Henri Gagnebin, a minister, and the former Adolphine Heshuysen. In 1892 the family moved to Switzerland, where the father was pastor of the Free Church in Biel and, from 1899, in Lausanne.
Education
Gagnebin attended the Classical Gymnasium in Lausanne, where he passed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1909. He then attended the University of Lausanne, receiving his Bachelor of Science in 1912, and PhD in physics and mathematics in 1920.
Career
In 1912 Gagnebin earned the licence in natural and physical sciences and became assistant to Maurice Lugeon, a specialist in the tectonics of Switzerland and one of the first advocates of the nappe theory of the Alps. He began geological researches toward his doctorate in 1913. They dealt with the Préalpes Bordières and the region of Ch′âtel St. Denis, famous for its wealth of fossils. In his dissertation, which he modestly entitled Communication préliminaire, Gagnebin set forth the main features of the stratigraphy and tectonics of the Préalpes Bordières, including the northward movement of the Ultrahelvetian nappes and klippes into the region. He continued to study this region during the next few years while furthering his professional knowledge by working under Wilfrid Kilian at Grenoble and Émile Haug at Paris.
Gagnebin began his academic career in 1917, when he occasionally replaced Lugeon as lecturer in paleontology. He was officially assigned to this post in 1928. He was promoted to associate professor in 1933 and delivered an inaugural lecture, “La durée des temps géologiques,” on 16 May of that year. In 1940 he succeeded Lugeon as full professor.
As a field geologist Gagnebin had made his mark as early as 1922 when he published his Carte géologique des Préalpes entre Montreux et le Moléson et du Mt.-Pèlerin. On the basis of this work the Swiss Geological Commission entrusted him with preparing the map of St. Maurice, a project that occupied Gagnebin’s summers from 1925 to 1933 and was published in 1934. From 1931 he was also a member of the Service de la Carte Géologique de France.
In 1939 Gagnebin published his observations on the shredding of the Simme nappe in the Chablais Préalpes. In 1941, with Lugeon, he brought out the classic investigation “Observations et vues nouvelles sur la géologie des Préalpes romandes.” In this study Gagnebin and Lugeon proposed continental drift as the primary process in the formation of the Alps. Gravity then caused the resulting accumulation of faulting and nappes to slide into their present positions. Gagnebin extended this hypothesis to the Helvetic Alps of eastern Switzerland in 1945.
Gagnebin’s other publications include a few short communications on chance paleontological finds and two popular works, Le transformisme et l’origine de l’homme and Histoire de la terre et des êtres vivants.
Membership
Gagnebin was a member of the Société des Belles Lettres.
Personality
Gagnebin was in addition an ardent champion of modern music. With his friend the Vaudois writer C. F. Ramuz, the composer Igor Stravinsky, and the conductor Ernest Ansermet, he created the drama L’histoire du soldat, in which he took the role of the narrator.