Rudolf Staub

Born Jan. 29, 1890, in Glarus; died June 25, 1961, in Fex, Graubünden Canton, Switzerland. Swiss geologist.

Staub became a student at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich in 1908 and later studied at the University of Zürich. From 1928 to 1957 he was a professor at both schools. His principal works dealt with the geological structure, tectonics, and geomorphology of the Alps and with general questions of geotectonics. Staub developed the idea that the continental blocks of the earth’s crust sometimes shift toward the poles, as a result of subcrustal magmatic currents, and sometimes toward the equator, as a result of centrifugal forces; this leads to alternating compressions and extensions of the géosynclinal regions in the equatorial zone of the globe.