Stegena Lajos

* Keszegfalva, November 10, 1921 – † Budapest, February 16, 1997 /geophysicist, cartographer, university professor ; ; His parents were teachers. He graduated from the Könyves Kálmán Realgimnázium in Újpest in 1938. In 1942, he received a degree in chemical engineering from the Hungarian Royal József Nádor University of Technology in Budapest. From 1941 to 1946, he worked as a researcher in soil science at the Hungarian State Geological Institute. Between 1946 and 1952, he was a researcher at the Eötvös Loránd Geophysical Institute, and from 1953, he directed seismic, geothermal and geochemical research as a scientific department head. From 1953, he was a university professor at the Department of Geophysics at ELTE: between 1966 and 1987, he was the head of the Department of Cartography. He was invited to give lectures at about 30 universities, each for one semester. He was a visiting professor at the universities of Freiberg, Clausthal, Kiel and Naples. The creation of the technical conditions for deep reflection seismic profiling and its experimental implementation was considered a novelty worldwide. He was the first to show that the crust of the Pannonian Basin is not thick, but thin, and thus laid the foundation for the abandonment of the prevailing geotectonic concept (intermediate-mass theory). He achieved outstanding successes in geothermal science. He was the first Hungarian to introduce plate tectonics. He first heard about this new idea at an international conference in 1967 and from then on he tried with all his might to make it a success in Hungary as well. This was not easy, because many people were skeptical about plate tectonics. However, he recognized the epochal significance of the theory and applied it to the Pannonian Basin. Another area of expertise was cartography, primarily the history of maps. He wrote more than 150 scientific articles and 23 books. ; ; His main works: ; Automation in Cartography (with István Klinghammer and Lajos Füsi), 1972, ; Eras and Maps, 1984, ; History of Maps, 1987, ; Projection Theory, 1988, ; Maps of Hungary before the Battle of Mohács, 1991.