Penck, Albrecht

Penck, Albrecht (äl`brĕkht pĕngk), 1858–1945, German geographer and geologist. He was professor at the Univ. of Vienna (1885–1906) and at the Univ. of Berlin (1906–26) and was director (1906–22) of the institutes of oceanography and of geography, Berlin. He is noted for his study of glaciation (especially in the Alps), for his pioneer classification of land forms, and for his work in the development of modern regional geography. Outstanding among his many works is Morphologie der Erdoberfläche [morphology of the earth's surface] (1894, rev. ed. 1928).