earth science

Katharina Perch-Nielsen

Katharina Perch-Nielsen is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Katharina Perch-Nielsen rather than just read about it. In short: Katharina von Salis Perch-Nielsen (born 26 October 1940) is a Swiss geologist and orienteering competitor. She is a retired adjunct professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Key takeaways

Katharina Perch-Nielsen belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Katharina Perch-Nielsen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Katharina Perch-Nielsen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Katharina von Salis Perch-Nielsen (born 26 October 1940) is a Swiss geologist and orienteering competitor. She is a retired adjunct professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. She retired 1 October 2001. During her scientific career, as a professor in the Micropaleontology at the Geological Institute at ETH Zurich, she was highly engaged in promoting gender equality in sciences and active in fighting to improve the position of girls and women in sciences at Swiss universities and high schools. She was at the origin of the Office of Equal Opportunities for Men and Women that has existed at ETH Zurich since 1993.

Early life and education Born in 1940 in Zurich, Switzerland, Perch-Nielsen studied geology at the University of Berne where she also received her PhD in 1965 in geology and sedimentology.

Sports career She competed at the very first European Orienteering Championships, in 1962, where she placed 6th in the individual contest. She also won a bronze medal in the unofficial relay, with the Swiss team. At the 1964 European Orienteering Championships, she won a silver medal in the relay for Switzerland, and placed tenth in the individual event. She won a silver medal in the individual event at the 1966 World Orienteering Championships in Fiskars, and finished 4th in the relay event with the Swiss team. She made several climbing first-ascents. However, back then she was not allowed to join the exclusively male Alpine climbing club at the Berne University (which was funded by her grandfather).

Scientific career Perch-Nielson started her career as a postdoctoral researcher first in Copenhagen in Denmark and then in Paris. In 1968, she got a lecturer position in Copenhagen where she stayed till 1974. Between 1974 and 1989, she moved with her family to Zurich, Amsterdam, Vienna, The Hague, and London, before coming back to Zurich. During this time, she held academic positions in the Free University Amsterdam and the Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna, but also worked for Shell as a consultant biostratigrapher. In 1989, she was appointed professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich.

Awards Perch-Nielsen was awarded the Steno Medal in 1998, for her work in micropaleontology in Denmark and Greenland, and as a pioneer in the study of coccoliths. In 2003 she was awarded Honorary Membership of the International Nannoplankton Association and in 2007 she got the Prize by the Somazzi Foundation for her work in geology and equal opportunity. In 2008, Perch-Nielsen got the Brady medal for her contribution in the fields of biostratigraphy and palaeobiology and her knowledge on nannofossils.

Personal life A daughter of Charlotte v. Salis, Perch-Nielsen grew up in Zollikofen, in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Her grandmother was a painter, mountaineer and a single mother. Her mother was a journalist. She married Danish chemical engineer Jørgen Perch-Nielsen, and has three daughters Nina, Christina and Sabine.

Selected works Geologische und sedimentologische Untersuchungen in Molasse und Quartär südöstlich Wolhusen (1965) Der Feinbau und die Klassifikation der Coccolithen aus dem Maastrichtien von Dänemark (1968) Revision of Triassic stratigraphy of the Scoresby Land and Jameson Land region, East Greenland (1974)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Katharina Perch-Nielsen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Katharina Perch-Nielsen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Katharina Perch-Nielsen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Katharina Perch-Nielsen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Katharina Perch-Nielsen

In research: Katharina Perch-Nielsen appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Katharina Perch-Nielsen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Katharina Perch-Nielsen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, 20th-century Swiss geologists, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Katharina Perch-Nielsen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Katharina Perch-Nielsen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Katharina Perch-Nielsen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Katharina Perch-Nielsen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Katharina Perch-Nielsen in simple terms?

Why does Katharina Perch-Nielsen matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Katharina Perch-Nielsen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Katharina Perch-Nielsen.