Albrecht Penck
Albrecht Penck (25 September 1858 – 7 March 1945) was a German geographer and geologist and the father of Walther Penck. Biography. Born in Reudnitz near Leipzig, Penck became a university professor in Vienna, Austria, from 1885 to 1906, and in Berlin from 1906 to 1927. There he was also the director of the "Institute and Museum for Oceanography" by 1918. He dedicated himself to geomorphology and climatology and raised the international profile of the "Vienna School of physical geography". With Eduard Bruckner, he was co-author of "Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter", a work in which the two  scientists identified the four ice ages of the European Pleistocene (Gunz, Mindel, Riss, Würm); these being named after the river valleys that were the first indication of each glaciation. Since 1886, he was married to the sister of the successful Bavarian regional writer Ludwig Ganghofer. In 1945, Penck died in Prague. Penck arranged for the poshumous publication of his son's monograph "Der Morphologische Analyse" in 1924. However he did not take any stance for -or against- his son's theories on geomorphology. In 1928, Penck taught as a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley led by  Carl O. Sauer. Albrecht Penck was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1905 and awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1914. Legacy. The glacier of Penckbreen in Wedel Jarlsberg Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard is named after him. Since 1958 the "Albrecht-Penck-Medaille" is awarded by the " Deutsche Quartärvereinigung" for accomplishments associated with Quaternary science. In memory of Penck, the painter and sculptor Ralf Winkler adopted the nom de plume A. R. Penck in 1966.