Louis Marie Bernard Dangeard was a French geologist and oceanographer.
Background
He was son of the botanist and mycologist Pierre Augustin Dangeard. Louis Dangeard was born on April 29, 1898 in Poitiers. His father had come from Caen in 1891 to take up a professorship at the Academie des Sciences, the scientific faculty of the University of Poitiers.
In 1909 the family moved to Paris, where his father had reached an employment at the prestigious scientific faculty of the University of Paris.
Education
Louis Dangeard studied geology in Paris and, in 1919 moved to the scientific faculty of the University of Rennes working as préparateur.
Career
Louis Dangeard was one of the founders of modern oceanography. He was the youngest of four siblings. In 1923 he got permanent and, in 1928 he was promoted assistant.
1922 to 1927 he took part into seven boat trips to explore the ocean floor and the sediment.
The trips were organized by Jean Charcot with his research vessel Pourquoi Pas? and they covered the North Sea, the Bay of Biscay and especially the English Channel. Dangeard"s main focus was the investigation of the seabed.
In 1928 he received his doctorate with a highly acclaimed thesis on the seabed of the English Channel. In 1930 Dangeard was appointed chair professor of geology at the scientific faculty of the University of Clermont-Ferrand, but switched in 1933 to the Chair of Geology at the Faculté des Sciences at the University of Caen, Lower Normandy, (succession of Alexandre Bigot).
Within his scientific work he concentrated mainly on sedimentology and petrography.
Already in January 1926, Louis Marie Bernard Dangeard had married the 22-year-old Marie Louise Joseph Marcille (1902 —- 1980). The couple had six children: Henri, Yves, Alain, Anne, Armelle and Gilles Marie Louise. He left his chair at Caen university and retired in 1968.
Membership
Dangeard was a member of the French geological society.