Hauthal, Rudolf Johannes Friedrich b. March 3, 1854; Hamburg d. December 18, 1928; Hildesheim, Hanover (Prussia)
German specialist on geology of South America. Hauthal studied at the universities of Jena, Tubingen, and Leipzig, first theology, but soon devoted himself to the natural sciences.
Starting in 1874 he supported himself as a tutor for aristocratic families. Backed by Baron von Cotta, he continued his studies in 1887 at the University of Straβburg, dedicating himself exclusively to geology and botany. In 1890 he went to Argentina as a private tutor, where within a year he assumed responsibility for the geological and mineralogical department of the La Plata Museum. In 1896 and 1897 Hauthal participated as a state geologist in an Argentinean land survey of the Patagonian cordillera. Starting in 1898 he taught as a professor (Cate- dratico) of geology in the newly established University of La Plata. He explored the country on numerous trips and expeditions, including the Atacama Desert, the mountain provinces of Salta, La Rioja, San Juan, and Mendoza, as well as in the south of Argentina broad areas of Patagonia. There, a lake discovered by him at the end of 1898 bears his name (Lago Hauthal). He made several mountain ascents, including the Cerro Colorado de Famatina (6,200 m; 18,898 feet), the Rincon (5,800 m; 17,678 feet), the Peteroa (5,600 m; 17,069 feet), and the Novado del Ancon- quija (5,600 m; 17,069 feet). In 1901 Hauthal directed an English commission for the settlement of the border dispute in Patagonia between Argentina and Chile. Finally, from 1905 to 1906 he led a glacialmorphology expedition sponsored by the Geographical Society at Leipzig to the Peruvian Andes, where he confirmed and supplemented the research findings of Hans Heinrich Joseph Meyer on snow and permanent snow boundaries, as well as on the time frame of glacier advances in the ice age (Reisen in Bolivien und Peru, gla- cial-geologische Forschungsresultate [Travels in Bolivia and Peru: Glacial-geological Research Findings], 1911). In 1903 he took advantage of a stay in Europe to obtain his doctorate at the University of Straβburg with a dissertation entitled “Uber die geol- ogischen Verhaltnisse der Provinz Buenos Aires” (On the Geological Conditions of the Province of Buenos Aires). From 1906 until 1924 he ran the Roemer-Museum in Hildesheim, and he represented his adopted South American country further as the Argentinean vice-consul for the Province of Hanover (until 1917). His scientific contributions rest on his geological and glacial-morphological research; for example, on the watershed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, on the Ice Age, and on penitent snow (nieve penitente). His extensive photo collection is located in the Leibniz-Institut fur Landerkunde (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography) in Leipzig and constitutes a valuable source on the geography of southern South America at the beginning of the twentieth century.Heinz Peter Brogiato See also Meyer, Hans Heinrich Joseph References and Further Reading Henze, Dietmar. Enzyklopadie der Entdecker undErforscher der Erde. Vol. II. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1983, pp. 470-471.
Kuhn, Franz. “Rudolf Hauthal.” Petermanns Mitteilungen 75 (1929): 87-88.