Kenneth Hsu
Kenneth Jinghwa Hsu () Ph.D, M.A., born 28 June 1929, is a Chinese scientist, geologist, paleoclimatologist, oceanographer, government advisor, author, inventor and entrepreneur who was born in Nanjing, China. Biography. Education Hsu (Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.) studied at the Chinese National Central University (later renamed Nanjing University in mainland China and reinstated in Taiwan) (B.Sc. 1948), and came to the United States in 1948 where he studied at Ohio State University (M.A., 1950), and at University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his Ph.D in 1953. Professional life Hsu worked as a petroleum geologist and environmental  engineer for the Shell Development Corporation (Houston), now called Shell Oil Company, between 1954 and 1963. He also taught at U.S. universities (1963–67), before becoming Chairman of the Experimental Geology Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), in 1967, where he was Emeritus Professor of Geology until 1994. Hsu started his business career after his retirement from teaching. Professorships & lectureships Hsu was a lecturer, guest or honorary professor in geology, climatology or oceanography at numerous renowned universities of the world, including Beijing, California (San Diego), Cambridge, Columbia, Florence, Harvard, London, Milan, M.I.T., Moscow, Nanjing, Naples, Ohio, Oxford , Paris, Princeton, Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto, Washington, Woods Hole, Yale etc. After retirement in 1994, he was Guest Professor at the National Taiwan University (1994–95), Guest Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Senior Fellow at the Berlin Institute of Advanced Studies (1995-56), Keck Professor at Colorado School of Mines, University Professor at Nanjing University, and University Professor at Beijing University of Geosciences. Scientific work Hsu served in numerous scientific organizations: Editorships Hsu was Editor and or Associate Editor of numerous journals including: Institutional work Hsu was elected a Member of the U. S. National Academy of Science in 1986 . He later became a Foreign Associate. He was also an Associate of the Third-World Academy of Sciences, a Member of Academia Sinica (1988), the Mediterranean Academy of Sciences and several other academies of science. He was a founder of the European Geophysical Society and a founder of the science of paleoceanography. He convened the First International Conference of Paleoceanography and founded the journal Paleoceanography. Hsu also assisted in the founding of the Asian Association of Marine Geology. He also served for 11 years as President of the International Association of Sedimentologists. Hsu was the convener of the Third Workshop  on Marine Geology of IUGS; the First Earth Science Colloquium of the European Science Foundation; several Dahlem Conferences of the Dahlem Foundation; and numerous symposia and workshops for IGP, ILP, IGCP, SCOR and JOIDE. Advisory work Hsu was a convener of numerous scientific conferences, founder of several scientific societies, and advisor to the governments of developing countries: Scientific exploration Hsu participated and led 5 deep-sea drilling cruises to the South Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea. He also led several international expeditions to Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, South China, California Coast Ranges and the Swiss Alps, travelling to 80 countries  for Earth Science. Academic work Hsu joined ETH Zürich in 1967 as an associate professor and built up 5 leading international laboratories in the fields of rock mechanics (geophysics), mass-spectrometry (isotope geochemistry), Quaternary research (paleoclimatology), sedimentology and tectonics. During Hsu's 28-year tenure, 4 of the Geological Institute's staff received the Wollaston Medal. Political work His co-organized a consortium of 15 European member states to join the International Ocean Drilling Program. China work Hsu successfully lobbied for the admission of the Chinese Geological Union to replace the Chinese Geological Society in Tapieh as a member of  the International Union of Geological Sciences and was a member of the first IUGS delegation to China. He served the Chinese Ministry of Geology and Mining in giving training programs for Sedimentology (1979), Field Geology of Tibet (1980) and Plate Tectonics (1992). From 1983–1995, he assisted the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with the completion of a project on plate tectonics and to publish a new Geological Atlas of China. Appreciation Two Festschrift symposia books, "Controversies in Geology", and "Paradoxes in Geology", were published by Hsu's colleagues on his 60th and 70th birthdays. In September  2009, his contributions to China and to science were acknowledged at a conference in Beijing, attended by dignitaries from government, industry and academia. He participated in the Earth Science Revolution of the 1960s, and is active in the field of evolutionary biology (symbiogenesis) with Lynn Margulis, and in the reform of geological education and physics. Affiliations Awards For his contributions to geology, Hsu received several medals and awards. Scientific contributions. In geology, his work included sedimentation in isostatically driven tectonic basins, the active margins of continental plates, physical chemistry of evaporite and pelagic diagenesis, documentation of granulite formation, catastrophic consequences  of meteorite impacts, extinction of life forms and the limnology of Lake Zurich. Commercial activities. Enterprise After his retirement, Hsu made several inventions in mining, oil, water and energy technology, and founded various companies including Tarim Resource Recycling Limited (UK, 2003); Kenneth Hsu IHC Technology & Development Limited (China, 2005) and Lazarus Energy International Limited (UK, 2007). Inventions Hsu was awarded 16 patents in mining, petroleum, water, carbon, energy and environment management, including the Hydro-Transistor and Integrated Hydrologic Circuit (IHC). Hsu's technologies applied in China included: Endorsements After extensive research and development, Hsu's water technologies were unanamiously endorsed  by an expert panel called by the Chinese State Counsellors' Office (Civilian Chief of Staff) of the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao; and by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting, and University of California Chancellor, Henry Yang, who both served on the Chinese Premiere's KHC Advisory Board. In 2000, Hsu combined the newly developed enhanced oil recovery techniques of hydro-fracturing and horizontal drilling, with water flooding, to invent a totally new process of residual oil recovery (ROR), called 3-dimensional fluid injection, to exploit residual oil. The method utilized water rather than carbon dioxide, although carbon dioxide can also be  used in the process. Hsu suggested the technique could increase the recoverable petroleum reserve of the world by a factor of 50% or more. With the full support of the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, in February 2006, an Expert Panel called by former Petroleum Minister Dr Wang Tao, unanimously agreed Hsu's ROR invention was innovative, and should be tested and applied in China. In April 2006, PetroChina reported a successful test at the Changqing Oil Field (Northwest China), first discovered in 1907. Prior to the test, its annual production was about 10,000 tons. In 2006, this rose to  10 million tons, and in 2007, to 20 million tons. Ventures Hsu is active with institutions, organizations and corporations to apply the new technologies in China and internationally. Consultancy Hsu is President of the IHC Technology & Development Corporation (China), Senior Advisor and Chief Engineer to the Kenneth Hsu Institute for IHC Development (National Institute Of Earth Sciences, Beijing) and Director of the Center for Environmental & Health Engineering (Henan University, Kaifeng). His work on the link between nitrite in drinking water and cancer was documented in The Ecologist journal. Notable writings. Hsu authored or edited over 20 books, many in multiple  languages, and was elected an International Writer of the Year by the International Book Club (Cambridge, UK) in 2003. The Mediterranean Was A Desert, 1982 The book concerned Hsu's work deciphering the Messinian Salinity Crisis and provided a first-hand account of one of the most significant deep-sea drilling cruises ever launched. The voyage, Leg 13 of the D/V Glomar Challenger, was undertaken in 1970 and led to the hypothesis that 5.5 million years ago, the Mediterranean was a desert. It documented the adventures of the oceanographic expedition and offered portraits of 'big' science and 'big' scientists  at work, with human touches, as a memoir for historians of science. The book was selected by Philip Morrison of Scientific American as one of the 100 most significant and influential books of science in the 20th century. A film was also made by PBS, based on the book. Challenger At Sea, 1983 The book was an overview of the then current state of marine geology and a source book for the history of that science, and was used as a geology textbook for non-majors. The Great Dying, 1986 The book described the circumstances leading to the discovery that  the dinosaur extinction was triggered by a cometary impact. An inquiry into the nature of survival and extinction, it was published in 6 languages, selling over 170,000 copies worldwide, selling 28,000 copies in the United States between 1986 and 1988; 100,000 copies in Mainland China in 1989 and 40,000 copies in Taiwan. A popular newspaper in Taipei "United Post" featured "The Great Dying" in its weekly list of best-selling books list for more than a year, and it was chosen as a top non-fiction book of the year in August 1992. Originally intended to teach the public, the  book was used as a textbook in the United States for its scientific method. A film was also made based on the book by ZDF. In the book, Hsu marshalled "some of the most gripping and controversial geological discoveries of our time to blast Darwin’s claim and to shake the foundations of his evolutionary theory," showing evidence indicating a meteor collided with the Earth, 66 million years ago, leaving much of it uninhabitable, and warning that a similar event may threaten humanity in the future. Hsu criticized Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. According to Hsu "If most  extinctions are caused by catastrophes... then chance, not superiority, presides over who shall live and who shall die. Indeed, the whole course of evolution may be governed by chance, and not reflect at all the slow march from inferior to superior forms so beloved by Victorians, and so deeply embedded in Western thought." The book endorses catastrophism and non-Darwinian evolution. Klima Macht Geschichte, 2000 "" presented a theory of climate and history, looking at future climate changes based on historical, archaeological and helio-biological evidence. It made the prediction of global cooling of the planet in the last decades of  the 21st century, and the coming of a little ice age before 2500. The claim forecast was corroborated by scientists Khabibullo Abdusamatov, Yuk Yung, John Cassey, Nigel Calder, Henrik Svensmark, Alexander Chizhevsky and John D. Hamaker . Orell Fussli Verlag published the book after an article about Hsu appeared in Bilanz Magazine in 1998. Earlier, in 1992, Hsu wrote in "Geographical Magazine", "Perhaps our species was created by Gaia to prevent a catastrophic chill" in reference to his published paper "'Is Gaia Endothermic?", on which the book is also based. Amadeus & Magdalena, 2002 Published in Chinese, English and German, with a  Chinese translation titled "莫扎特的愛與死"., the book presented Hsu's musicological theory about the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Works. A complete list of books by Kenneth Hsu is available at the Kenneth J. Hsu Official Site. Selected articles. Hsu is the author or co-author of more than 400 scientific articles on Archaeology, Cancer, Chronon Physics, Climatology, Cosmology, Cytology, Epistemology, Evolution, Fractal Geometry, Gaia, Geology, Heliobiology, History, Hydro-Physics, Languages, Marine Biology, Mathematics, Marine Biology, Music, Oceanography, Palaeontology, Paleoclimatology, Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Symbiogenesis. A complete list of articles by Kenneth Hsu is available at the Kenneth J. Hsu Official  Site . Materials citing Hsu. Books Articles Films