Telasco García Castellanos: Promotor de la Geología y de las ciencias

Abstract

Telasco García Castellanos was born in Córdoba in 1912, where he died in 2008.  He studied at the College of Montserrat and the Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the National University of Córdoba, where he graduated as Geologist and Doctor of Natural Sciences, specializing in Geology and Mineralogy. At the same institutions he was Professor, Counselor, Vice-Dean and Vice-Chancellor. In 1956 he was appointed Academic at the National Academy of Sciences, which he presided between 1972 and 1992, and in which he had an intense and outstanding performance that contributed to the prestige of that institution. Later he dealt with science history, especially geological, subjects on which he made numerous contributions, local and global, with which he participated and was distinguished in and by national and international institutions. All these activities led him: a) in 1966 to promote the publication of a special volume of the Bulletin of the Academy in Tribute to the 150th anniversary of Argentine Independence, where the foundations for the scientific knowledge of various regions of Argentina were laid, b) to preside in 1969 the First Argentine Congress of History of Science on the occasion of the centenary of the Academy, whose results were included in a special volume, where in the initial article, of  his authorship, he highlighted the significance of the creation of the Academy. He promoted and coordinated the realization of two symposia of Argentine Regional Geology, in 1969 and 1976, which resulted in two fundamental works for Argentine Geology, not surpassed to the present day, in which geological existing knowledge was synthesized throughout the national territory. He also dealt with the history of geological teaching at the National University of Córdoba. A special mention deserves his documented studies on D. F. Sarmiento and his influence on scientific institutions in Córdoba. The almost anonymous authorship of many of these activities was a faithful reflection of a generous and gentle spirit put at the service of the scientific community.