Michels, Karl Franz

Geologist, paleontologist

Born: 02.12.1891 in Eltville

died: 19.03.1970 in Wiesbaden

Michels studied natural sciences in Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich, Bonn and Frankfurt and completed his doctorate under Fritz Drevermann (1875-1932) with a thesis on the "Neue Lust" red iron quarry near Nanzenbach. After short periods of employment at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt and the Provinzial-Museum in Hanover, he passed the first state examination at the Prussian Geological Survey (later: Reichsamt für Bodenforschung) in Berlin, where he worked from 1922. From 1945 he headed the Limburg branch office.

His most important achievement during this time was the mapping of seven sheets of the 1: 25,000 geological map of the Taunus and its south-eastern foothills. Six further sheets, mainly from the Limburg area, are available as manuscripts. In 1945, he set up the state geological service in Hesse. He was head of the State Office for Soil Research in Wiesbaden, which he founded, until 1959. As a hydrogeologist, he was involved in the development of numerous municipal water supplies.

For a long time, he was also active in the Wiesbaden Thermal Springs Commission together with Wilhelm Fresenius and Berghauptmann Graf from the Hessian Mining Authority, where he was responsible for securing and recasting the most important thermal springs(Kochbrunnen, Salmquelle, Adlerquelle, Schützenhofquelle and Faulbrunnen).

Numerous honors rewarded him for his tireless work in applied geology. A water tunnel in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe bears his name. He had already joined the Nassau Society for Natural History in 1928. He became an honorary member in 1954 and its first chairman in 1960. On his 75th birthday (1968), a "Franz-Michels-Band" of the association's journal was published.