Abstract
PROF. V. M. GOLDSCHMIDT, whose election to foreign membership of the Royal Society has just been announced, has made outstanding contributions in each of the fields of petrology, crystal chemistry and geochemistry. His early studies in rock metamorphism marked a major advance in the correlation of the chemical and mineralogical composition of thermally reconstituted rocks and contained the first successful essay towards a systematic classification of rock-mineral assemblages in the light of the phase rule. The leader of great schools of geochemistry both at Gottingen and Oslo, Goldschmidt has for many years devoted his attention to the discovery of the principles governing the terrestrial distribution of the elements : in this programme his classical researches on the crystal structure of ionic compounds were early achievements and may be regarded as laying the foundation of the science of crystal chemistry. His exhaustive series of investigations on the chemical composition of rocks and minerals has revolutionized our knowledge of the distribution of the minor constituents of the earth's crust, while his similar studies on meteorites have brought a special contribution to the problem of the chemistry of the earth's deep interior. It is in these comprehensive researches, both geochemical and crystallochemical, that Goldschmidt has contributed in such large measure to the present-day picture of the geochemical evolution of matter within the litho-sphere.
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Prof. V. M. Goldschmidt, For.Mem.R.S. Nature 151, 636 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151636c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151636c0