In the early morning of 8 February 2016, shortly after his 80th birthday, our Honorary Member Hans A. Seck passed away following a prolonged and serious illness.
Hans Seck was born on 4 December 1935 in Cologne, Germany. After the turbulent final years of the Second World War and the difficult post-war period, he attended the Municipal Modern Languages High School in Cologne-Deutz from 1947, graduating with his Abitur in 1956. He subsequently studied mineralogy at the University of Cologne. In 1962, he completed his doctoral dissertation on the geochemistry of subvolcanic rocks from the Laacher See area under the supervision of Karl Jasmund.
From 1964 to 1966, Hans Seck was a postdoctoral researcher with O. F. Tuttle, one of the founders of modern experimental petrology, first at Pennsylvania State University and, following Tuttle's move in 1965, at Stanford University. During this period, he contributed to the establishment of a high-pressure, high-temperature experimental laboratory. Equipped with this expertise, he established a hydrothermal laboratory in Cologne in 1966, which was later expanded into a high-pressure laboratory. His experiments on the thermobarometry of coexisting alkali feldspars and plagioclase formed the basis of his cumulative habilitation in the early 1970s. In 1973, he was appointed Professor at the university in his hometown. Between 1976 and 1982, he participated in a German Research Foundation (DFG) priority programme on vertical tectonics in the Rhenish Massif. During this period, he initiated petrological and geochemical research on upper mantle and lower crustal xenoliths from beneath the Eifel region, work that continued for almost three decades. In the 1980s, these studies were expanded through collaboration with Russian colleagues to include the Baikal Rift, and from the late 1990s onwards to ophiolites in Newfoundland. During the 1990s, Hans Seck increasingly returned to experimental petrology, carrying out studies on trace element partitioning between Mg–Fe silicates and silicate melts, as well as on the partial melting of granulites.
Many of these publications received international recognition, as reflected by their high citation rates. Despite this success, Hans Seck remained a modest man—perhaps more modest than necessary. He was always approachable for his doctoral and diploma students and was universally respected for his fairness.
The great confidence his colleagues placed in him is reflected by his election as DFG reviewer for Mineralogy and Petrology for two consecutive terms (1987–1995). During the second term, he also served as Deputy Chair of the review panel. He remained actively involved with the German Mineralogical Society for more than 50 years, serving as Vice President and President from 1995 to 1998 and as Treasurer from 2002 to 2007.
Hans Seck retired in the summer semester of 2001 and was honored with a farewell colloquium. Nevertheless, he remained actively involved with the Cologne Institute of Mineralogy until the institute building had to be vacated for renovation in 2011.
The award of Honorary Membership of the DMG in autumn 2015 meant a great deal to him. Sadly, he was able to enjoy this distinction for only a short time. Hans Seck is survived by his wife Maria and his two sons, Christoph and Stephan.
Heinz-Günter Stosch ∙ Karlsruhe
The author gratefully acknowledges E. Jux (Overath), V. Rudert (Göttingen), and B. Scheibner (Cologne) for providing information, and R. Hollerbach (Cologne) for supplying the photograph.