Alex Alexis von Volborth

• http://prabook.org/web/person-view.html?profileId=463774
• http://www.siennablu.com/VOLBORTHHOME
• http://www.fotodi.ru/articles.php?id=226
• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=volborth&GSby...

We have learned of the death of Dr. Alexis Volborth, who served as mineralogist/petrologist faculty at NDSU Geology from 1975 to 1978. From his obituary in the Lake County (Montana) Leader, “Alex was born on July 11, 1924, in Viipuri (Wyborg) Karelia, Finland, the son of the late Alexis von Volborth and Ljubow Ottllie Augusta Schroeder. He joined the Finnish Army and served during WWII, and in 1947 married Nadia Hasso in Helsinki, Finland. He had a lifelong passion for learning and earned numerous degrees; geology and mineralogy (PhD), 1954; philosophy (mineralogy, geology chemistry) (MS), 1954; Philosophy, Eximia Cum Laude, (BS), all three from the University of Helsinki; postdoctoral: University of Vienna, University of Heidelberg, California Institute of Technology (Hoover Fellow), Pasadena, California. Among his many positions as an educator, Alex was a professor emeritus at Montana Tech, a professor at Washington State University and University of Nevada, as well as a visiting professor in Irvine, California, Killam professor, Dalhousie University, Canada; visiting scientist, at NASA. Reflecting on Volborth’s time at NDSU Geology, Allan Ashworth writes, “Alexis was as bright and as irrepressible an individual as I have ever met. I always got on well with him, but university administrators did not. We shared him with NDSU Chemistry in some strange arrangement - teaching responsibilities to Geology, research to Chemistry.” A website in tribute to the natural history photography of Volborth can be found at: www.siennablu.com/VOLBORTHHOME