Arden L. Albee

Arden L. Albee (born May 28, 1928 in Port Huron (Michigan) ) is an American mineralogist, petrologist and geologist.

Albee studied geology at Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in 1950, a master's degree in 1951 and a PhD in 1957. During his doctoral studies, he worked for the US Geological Survey . He then went to Caltech, initially in 1959/60 as Visiting Assistant Professor. In 1960 he became associate professor and 1966 professor of geology and from 1999 also of planetology. In 2002 he retired. From 1984 to 2000 he was Dean of Graduate Studies at Caltech.

He dealt with the formation and mineralogy of metamorphic rocks and developed a method to obtain correction factors for the chemical composition of oxides and silicates from the data of the electron microprobe (EPMA, bombardment with electrons and analysis of the X-ray spectra). The 1968 publication with his student AE Bence became one of the most cited works in geology. Albee supervised the microsample analysis at Caltech.

In the US Geological Survey he mapped Vermont, Colorado and Maine and later regional focuses were northern Vermont, western Greenland and Death Valley. He was also involved in the Apollo program, in which he examined lunar rocks, and later in various Mars missions (Mars Observer, Mars Global Surveyor) of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, of which he was chief scientist from 1978 to 1984.

He received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Albee was Associate Editor of Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Science from 1979.

Fonts

• with AE Bence: Empirical correction factors for the electron microanalysis of silicates and oxides, Journal of Geology, Volume 76, 1968, pp. 382-403.
• with Ray: Correction Factors for Electron Probe Microanalysis of Silicates, Oxides, Carbonates, Phosphates, and Sulfates, Analytical Chemistry, Volume 42, 1970, pp. 1408-1414.

literature

• Alexander E. Gates: Earth Scientists from A to Z, Facts on File, 2003

Web links

• Homepage at Caltech