Zemes un vides zinātnes Earth and Environment Sciences - Latvijas ...

Ervīns Lukševičs, Ģirts Stinkulis. Otrais V. Grosa simpozijs
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palaeontology, director of the Geologische-Paläontologische Institut and
Palaeontological Section of the Museum.
After building of the notorious Berlin Wall, at the end of August of 1961, Walter
Gross together with wife Ursula arrived in Hamburg, where annual meeting of the German
Palaeontological Society took place. As the Gross children were already in Western
Europe, W. Gross accepted proposal of professor Schindenwolf to become an associate
professor in Tübingen (Schultze 1996). His scientific productivity has not decreased,
he published several papers on the fish and agnathan microremains, where not only
their external morphology, but also histology was characterized. W. Gross retired in
1969, and in this year his illness with cancer was identified. Nevertheless, he actively
continued scientific studies until the end of 1973. W. Gross deceased in June of 1974.
Many publications (total number more than 90) already in 1950-ties have made name
of W. Gross famous among wide community of palaeontologists, especially vertebrate
researchers from Sweden, Great Britain, France, U.S.A., Russia and particularly from
Baltic States. In 1973 the 143 rd volume of the journal Palaeontographica has been
formed completely of papers on palaeoichthyology devoted to 70 th jubilee of W. Gross;
papers displayed his contacts with colleagues in Europe and North America.
In the Symposium on the Early Vertebrate Palaeontology, held in Beijing in 1987, a
group of palaeontologists decided to begin a research programme on the Palaeozoic
vertebrate microremains. Australian Dr. Susan Turner wrote a letter to potentially
interested partners with proposal to hold an International Symposium on Vertebrate
Microremains probably at a centre of Europe (Turner 1988: p. 2). Among many responses
there was also a reply from Dr. Tiiu Märss, researcher of the Institute of Geology,
Estonia, with several proposals (see Ichthyolith Issues 1988: Nr. 1, p. 9-10). The idea of
Academician Dimitri Kaljo was to organise the programme of vertebrate microfossils
research under auspices of some international organization such as UNESCO or
International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This idea has been quite soon
realised as the IUGS IGCP Project no. 328 “Biochronology of Palaeozoic Vertebrates
and Global Marine/Non-marine Correlation”, leading by Drs Alain Blieck and Susan
Turner. Second idea of Tiiu Märss was to relate first “Microvertebrate” Symposium
with 90 th Jubilee of W. Gross and organise it in Germany. Thanks to efforts of professors
Otto H. Wallizer and Hans-Peter Schultze, in Göttingen in 1993 the W. Gross Symposium
took place, and more than 80 participants from 20 countries, including one of the authors
of this paper (E.L.), attended it.
In honour of W. Gross and considering his contribution in modern palaeoichthyology,
the Second International Symposium in Honour of W. Gross “Advances in
Palaeoichthyology” has been held in Riga, Natural History Museum of Latvia, in 7-14 th
September of 2003, giving a start to tradition to celebrate jubilees of great scientist by
presentations on the early vertebrate palaeontology. Institute of Geology, University of
Latvia, Faculty of Geographical and Earth Sciences, and Natural History Museum of
Latvia organized the Symposium. Tradition of the Gross Symposium was continued,
and the Second Symposium also took place under auspices of the IUGS IGCP Project
491 “Middle Palaeozoic Vertebrate Biogeography, Palaeogeography and Climate”. One
of aims of the symposium was to introduce its participants with the Devonian and
Silurian fossil vertebrate sites in Latvia and Estonia during the field trip held after the
scientific session.