Haroun Tazieff

He also served in the Belgian resistance during World War II.

Haroun Tazieff studied at University of Liège and Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is geology and volcanology. Positions recorded include secretary of state and Miembro del Consejo General del Departamento de Isère. Distinctions recorded are Patron’s Medal, Jean-Perrin Prize, Mungo Park Medal and Jean Walter Prize.

• Name — Haroun Tazieff • Born — 11 May 1914 • Birthplace — Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire • Died — 2 February 1998 • Place of death — Paris, France • Education — University of Liège • Occupation — Geologist Volcanologist

Tazieff's parents met and married in 1906 while they were both students in Brussels. They later returned to Warsaw, where their first son, Salvator, died at two months and where Haroun was born. His father, Sabir, was a Muslim medical doctor of Tatar descent, and his mother, Zenita Iliyasovna Klupta, was a Polish Jewish chemist and doctor of natural science and holder of a bachelor's degree in political science. His father was conscripted into the Russian Army and died during the First World War, a fact that did not reach the family until 1919. In 1917 Haroun emigrated to Brussels with his widowed mother. Tazieff received a degree in agronomy in Gembloux in 1938, and another degree in geology at the University of Liège in 1944.

Tazieff participated in the first detailed exploration of the "Saint-Martin" La Verna cave system in the French Pyrenees. In 1952, while he was filming Marcel Loubens' ascent of the Pierre-Saint-Martin rock face, the cable of the hoist broke and Loubens fell over 80 meters. Loubens died 36 hours later but his body could only be recovered from the cave in 1954. He became famous in France after publishing a book titled, "Le Gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Martin" in 1952. He directed the documentary movie Le volcan interdit (1966) about the Nyiragongo Mountain in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he was the first to climb in 1948. The National Geographic film, The Violent Earth, was based on Tazieff's expeditions to the volcanoes Mount Etna on Sicily in 1971 and Mount Nyiragongo in 1972. In these expeditions he attempted, unsuccessfully, to descend into the active lava lake in order to collect samples — something he had managed to achieve on a previous expedition in 1959. He was a secretary of state in France in the 1980s, in charge of protection against major threats. In 2008 the mineral species Tazieffite was named in his honour. Tazieff died in 1998 and was buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris.

Haroun Tazieff worked in geology and volcanology. Recorded positions include secretary of state, Miembro del Consejo General del Departamento de Isère and conseiller régional de Rhône-Alpes.

Haroun Tazieff is recorded as having received Patron’s Medal, Jean-Perrin Prize and Mungo Park Medal.