Walther Penck was born in Vienna as the son of German geographer Albrecht Penck. He obtained a Ph.D. by studying petrology at the Heidelberg University. Between 1912 and 1915 he worked in Dirección General de Minas in Buenos Aires before moving to the University of Constantinople where he was named professor of mineralogy and geology. He finally settled as professor in the University of Leipzig in 1918. The areas he studied in detail and based his theories on include the Black Forest in Germany, Puna de Atacama in Argentina and Anatolia in modern Turkey.