Scientist with a sense of humour

If time machines existed,” says Harald Strauß, “I’d jump in straight away to take a look at a living mammoth.” Still, one thing that Strauß, who is Professor of Historical and Regional Geology, has been granted, is that from one of his workplaces at the University of Münster, he can regularly see a fossil of one: the Ahlen mammoth. Visible from afar, in the enormous window of the Geomuseum, the animal is also used as an emblem for the museum’s logo and brochures.

For 16 long years, the Geomuseum was a building site – before the Rectorate and Harald Strauß were able to welcome guests to the opening ceremony on August 10. “Sometimes friends asked me whether all the fun had gone out of it for me.” the museum director says. But the opposite was the case: my enthusiasm actually grew over time.” The Earth’s History Room was one of the first rooms to be completed. “And it’s turned out much better than I had imagined. Up to then, we only knew the plans.” He felt the same way, he says, when the 43,000-year-old newly restored mammoth was put in place 18 months ago.

His enthusiasm for his subject began at an early age. While he was still at school, Strauß, who grew up in Bad Sachsa in the Harz region, knew that he wanted to study geology at the nearby University of Clausthal-Zellerfeld. “In 1983 I was asked if I could imagine doing a PhD at Göttingen University.” As a post-doc, he undertook research work for three years in the United States – in Bloomington (Indiana) and at the University of California in Los Angeles. “There were 55 researchers from ten countries there, representing a variety of disciplines. It was a great time.” His wife and his newborn son accompanied him. “Because phoning was very expensive, we kept in touch with Germany in an unusual way: once a month we recorded messages on cassettes and posted them to our parents.” In 1988 he got an offer to build up the isotope laboratory at the University of Bochum, and the young family returned to Germany. Since 1999, Strauß – today the father of two grown-up children – has been teaching and researching in Münster.

“Isotopic measurements enable extremely old metabolic pathways to be determined,” Strauß explains. “It’s astonishing how many topics these measurements allow us to work on. We have already used them to analyse all sorts of things – rocks, of course, but also cows’ hairs, Greek statues or birds’ feathers. In a search for comparative samples of processes which took place in the early history of the Earth, he put to sea for the first time in 2005 in a research ship, the “Meteor”. Since then, Harald Strauß has undertaken several expeditions, gaining a reputation as a hard-working man of modest needs – and one with a sense of humour. Last summer for example, he recounts, a new crew member on the ship welcomed him with the words, “Ah, you’re the one who only needs four hours’ sleep.”

Strauß, 63, regularly passes on his passion for his subject at the Children’s University. It is a matter of regret for him that students taking the Abitur at school can find Maths, German or History on the curriculum – but not Geology. “This despite the fact that the challenges our society currently faces include many geo-issues such as climate change or the scarcity of resources,” he points out. This is one reason why teaching, in its various formats, is something he cares about. His work for the Geomuseum is not difficult, although it’s tantamount to an extra full-time job on top of his research and teaching.

It was twelve years ago that he took over as director of the museum – which is primarily a scientific collection. 2,300 exhibits, all originals, were selected for the permanent exhibition, in which the “tundra area” is the only one which has traditional ‘Please do not touch’ signs. “If at all possible,” says Strauß, “we don’t want to put up a Perspex screen between the mammoth and visitors, and so far it’s worked out really well.” At this spot, he adds, it’s often interesting for the museum’s attendants to watch guests trying to get themselves and the three-metre-tall mammoth onto a selfie …

Brigitte Heeke

This article is from the brochure "Twelve months, twelve people", published in February 2024.

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