The Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague is the alma mater of two renowned micropalaeontologists who had a major impact on micropalaeontology as a scientific field in their time – 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 in the future. The original foraminiferal collections of Adalbert Liebus and Vladimír Pokorný are stored in the repository of the Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. We are looking for funding to restore these collections.
Adalbert Liebus (*June 3, 1876 – † November 1, 1945)
Liebus studied at the German University in Prague and later became assistant to 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 associate professor (1923) and later full professor (1929) of palaeontology. He was an associate member of the State Geological Survey in Prague. Liebus devoted much of his attention to the study of fossil foraminifers and Pleistocene vertebrates.
Vladimír Pokorný (*June 12, 1922 – † July 21, 1989)
During the locking-out of the universities during the Second World War, Pokorný worked in the laboratories of the oil companies in Hodonín, where his interest in micropalaeontology was ignited. After the war he studied geology and palaeontology at the Faculty of Science, graduating in 1948, becoming an assistant professor in 1950 and a professor of zoopalaeontology in 1961. In 1968 he became the head of the Institute of Palaeontology, a position he held for an incredible 18 years. From 1973, Pokorný was also Vice-Dean for Research and Excellence and Head of the Department of Geology and Geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, as well as External Director of the Institute of Geology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and Vice-President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Pokorný specialised in foraminifera and ostracoda and published more than 230 papers with a high international impact. Pokorný focused mainly on the Paleogene and Neogene of the Western Carpathians and the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin. He developed the theoretical foundations of palaeontology and published the textbook Principles of Zoological Micropalaeontology, which was translated into many languages and became a famous textbook for many generations of researchers.