The Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague is the alma mater of two renown micropalaeontologist that greatly affected the micropalaeontology as a scientific field in their eras – professors Adalbert Liebus and Vladimír Pokorný. We are aware that the tradition and legacy they started is something exceptional and unique and we want to continue it further in the future. The original foraminiferal collections of Adalbert Liebus and Vladimír Pokorný are stored in the repository of the Institute of Geology and Paleontology. We are seeking for funding opportunities to be able to restore these collections.
Adalbert Liebus (*June 3, 1876 – † November 1, 1945)
Liebus studied at the German University in Prague and later became assistant of Professor G. Laube. After short stays at the Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna and at a secondary school in Prague, he qualified at the German University in Prague in 1912, and was appointed there as an adjunct professor (1923) and later full professor (1929) of palaeontology. He was associate member of the State Geological Survey in Prague. Liebus devoted much of his attention to the studies of fossil foraminifers and Pleistocene vertebrates.
Vladimír Pokorný (*June 12, 1922 – † July 21, 1989)
During the lockout of universities during the second world war, Pokorný worked for oil company laboratories in Hodonín, where he ignited his spark for micropalaeontology. After the war, he studied geology and palaeontology at the Faculty of Science, finishing the study in 1948; there, he became an assistant professor in 1950 and a professor of zoopalaeontology in 1961. In 1968 he became the head of the Institute of Palaeontology and held this position for an incredible 18 years. From 1973, Pokorný was also a vice dean for research and excellence and the head of the geology-geography department at the Faculty of Science as well as an external director of the Institute of Geology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and deputy chairman of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Pokorný specialized in Foraminifera and Ostracoda and published more than 230 works with a strong international coverage. Pokorný primarily focused on Palaeogene and Neogene of the west Carpathians and on the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin. He was developing the theoretical basics of palaeontology and published the textbook Principles of Zoological Micropalaeontology, which further became translated to many languages and became a famous textbook for many generations of researchers.
