[M-ZZ45_29PM1] Geoscience Studies: historical, philosophical and STS studies

[MZZ45-02] The Research on Seitaro Tsuboi Materials: Interpreting his Correspondence

*Fumihiko TOCHINAI¹ (1.Kanazawa Institute of Technology)

Keywords:History of Science, History of Geology in Japan, Seitaro Tsuboi, Archive

The author has studied a large quantity of historical materials about a geologist Seitaro Tsuboi (1893-1986) (hereinafter "Tsuboi Materials") since 2010, which have been collected and archived by Multi-media and Socio-information Studies Archive, University of Tokyo. Tsuboi conducted researches on igneous petrogenesis with physical and chemical methods from 1920s to 1950s, which attracted positively or negatively many geologists. Combined with his position, a professor of petrology at (Imperial) University of Tokyo, he had considerable influence on the course of Japanese geological sciences. Prior to the study of Tsuboi Materials, the author's understanding was that Tsuboi's influence over Japanese geological community rapidly decreased after his retirement from the professorship in 1954. However, the analysis of contents of Tsuboi Materials, such as correspondence with publishers about his books and documents about royalties on his books, suggests that his researches did attract people's interests even in the late 1970s. The details will be introduced in the presentation.