Quaternary geologist Anto Raukas will be awarded with national lifetime award
On 23 February, the academic Anto Raukas, a senior research fellow at Tallinn University Institute of Ecology, is going to receive a national lifetime award for his successful long-term work in the field of research and development. His extensive research and development activity in the field of geology is combined with the writing and editing of academic texts, intensive popularization of research and fascinating treatment of current issues of social development.
On 23 February, the academic Anto Raukas, a senior research fellow at Tallinn University Institute of Ecology, is going to receive a national lifetime award for his successful long-term work in the field of research and development. His extensive research and development activity in the field of geology is combined with the writing and editing of academic texts, intensive popularization of research and fascinating treatment of current issues of social development.
Anto Raukas has done research in many different fields of geology and its frontier sciences, but he is mostly recognized as a quaternary geologist. The Quaternary Period is the current geological era that started 2.7 million years ago; several glacial and interglacial periods have taken place during this period. It is an important period for Estonia, because it has shaped our landscape.
Anto Raukas has had a leading role in determining the stratigraphic schemes of the Estonian Quaternary period. With particular focus on the Holocene epoch and the borders of land/ice formation; the development stages of the Baltic Sea; sediments of Lake Peipsi and Lake Võrtsijärv and their development; soil formation on different parent rocks; the Estonian bedrock relief and interconnections with said relief; the emergence of glacial accumulative insular heights and the development stories of pro-glacial lakes. He has studied meteoritic explosive substances at Kaali in Saaremaa, and elsewhere.
Anto Raukas´s career as a researcher began in 1962 at the age of 26, when he defended a thesis for a candidate of sciences degree in geology-mineralogy. In 1972 at the age of 36, Anto Raukas was awarded a doctoral degree. In 1977, he was elected as a corresponding member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, after which he delivered a presentation, "Climate of the Northern hemisphere in the last 120,000 years and prognosis for the future", where he expressed - from a geologist’s viewpoint - his sceptical attitude towards man´s insignificance in comparison to geological and astronomical agents.
He has also been involved in (and influenced) the processes of such topics as the integrated use and protection of natural resources and the environmental damage caused by the Soviet occupation. With the support of his older colleagues, Anto Raukas has always considered it important to transmit his knowledge, for example as a lecturer of the association ‘Science’, through the creation of The Research Society for Estonian Students as well as being a supervisor of several doctoral theses.
Anto Raukas has deservedly been elected among the great men of the 20th century.
On 17 February, Anto Raukas, an academic and laureate of a lifetime achievement award in science, celebrated his 80th jubilee.
On Friday 20 February, at 10. 00 a.m, Anto Raukas is speaking at the science seminar in the hall of the TU Institute of Ecology. He will speak about his most significant research topic, Quaternary stratigraphy, for which he is also awarded the national lifetime achievement award in science.