Henri Fontaine

Henri Fontaine (20 July 1924 – 31 January 2020), was a French Roman Catholic missionary.

He was also a pre-Tertiary geologist/paleontologist, Paleozoic corals specialist, and archaeologist.

Fontaine was born in Normandy, France in July 1924.

Admitted into the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris and ordained in 1948, he was sent to Hanoi (Vietnam) in 1951 as professor at the Petit Séminaire.

Meantime, he plunged into the study of Devonian corals of Indochina and Yunnan.

Mineral water of the Dangun Spring (Province of Binh Thuân), one of the studied springs, has been exploited and bottled under the name Laska; its label mentions discovery in the 1950s by the French scientist H. Fontaine.

He released the only annual geological publication Archives géologiques du Viet Nam of which the first number came out in 1952 at Hanoi under the direction of Edmond Saurin who was the last chief of Geological Survey of Indochina.

In 1954 when Viet Nam was divided into North and South, he settled at Saigon.

When he arrived in Saigon, there was neither a geological survey nor geologists.

Upon the request of the Government of South Viet Nam, he set up and oversaw the new Geological Survey, and carried out research into limestone and coal for developing a cement factory and coal mine, pure silica sands for glassworks, and mineral springs for drinking and medicinal waters.

Early 1960, after getting Doctorat ès Sciences (PhD) at the University of Paris (Sorbonne, France), he was officially appointed expert-geologist to the Geological Survey of the Republic of Viet Nam, dependent himself on the Department of Cultural and Technical Cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France) from then on to 1976.

He founded the Department of Geology of the University of Huê (ancient imperial capital) and supported post-graduate students at the Faculty of Sciences of Saigon.

His research improved the geological maps 1/2 000 000 of the former French Indochina, the geological understanding of coastal areas, islands of the Gulf of Thailand, and early Quaternary alluvial formations in the northwest of Saigon.

He also contributed to developing pilot studies in order to build up dams on different rivers (La Nga, Dông Nai ...) and to explore heavy minerals in dunes of sand, along the eastern coast, and bauxite on basaltic plateaus.

On fieldworks, he discovered a prehistoric site at Phuoc Tân (on the route to Bà Ria) and unearthed many others (Ngai Thang, Cù lao Rùa, ...).

Furthermore, he studied some archeological sites (Dau Giay, Hoà Vinh near Phan Thiêt ).

In 1971, with Hoang Thi Than, he discovered a funeral jars site at Phu Hoa (Province of Dông Nai).

The sites of Hoà Vinh and Phu Hoà belong to the Sa Huynh Culture.

From 1973 onwards, the CCOP has conducted a research project entitled "Pre-Tertiary Petroleum Potentials in the CCOP Region" with the support of the French Government which appointed his experts on pre-Tertiary geology and palaeontology to the CCOP.

Father Fontaine succeeded Mr André Bonnet, another French geologist, and spent many months each year in Asia.

From then on to 1975, this publication went through 16 new editions under his responsibility.

Late 1978, he was officially appointed cooperating expert to the CCOP (Coordinating Committee for Coastal and Offshore Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia) which is based at Bangkok (Thailand) and supported until 1991 by the United Nations; thereafter it was sponsored by member countries and cooperating countries.

He died in l’Haÿ-les-Roses, near Paris, in January 2020 at the age of 95.

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