Conrad Kilian

François-Théodore-Conrad Kilian (23 August 1898 – 29 April 1950) was a French geologist, son of Charles Constant Wilfrid Kilian. An explorer of the Saharan region, he postulated that it held oil reserves underneath. He died under mysterious circumstances, in his hotel room in Grenoble in 1950.

Life and work

Kilian was born in Château des Sauvages, Ardèche. His father Wilfrid, from Alsace, moved to Grenoble after 1870 and become a professor and a pioneer of alpine geology. His mother was Anna Boissy d'Anglas (1841-1899). An ancestor was George Cuvier, the paleontologist. He was educated at Grenoble before he entered the Naval academy at Louis-le-Grand like his brother Robert who became an Admiral but he did not complete due to poor health. He returned to Grenoble and in 1917 he enlisted in the army and served on the front, receiving a Croix de Guerre and demobilized in 1920. He joined studies in Lyon under Charles Deperet but gave up. He joined an expedition to Hoggar in 1921 after he heard about emeralds (turning out to be green felspar). He followed the route of the ill-fated Flatters mission but being alone, he got along with the Tuaregs. Based on the observations made during his travels, he came to the conclusion that the Sahara was once a part of the sea and suggested that it might hold oil sources beneath it. His father Wilfrid sent Jacques Bourcart who was on the Danish Ole Olufsen mission to examine the claims. In 1922 Bourcart confirmed the observations. He made numerous explorations in the Sahara desert in search of oil sources. In 1934, he helped produce a geological map of Africa and was involved in the International Exhibition of the Sahara in Paris. Silene kiliani was named after Kilian by René Maire.