George T. Faust

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George Tobias Faust (born August 27, 1908 in Philadelphia , † February 7, 1985 in Morristown , New Jersey ) was an American mineralogist .

Faust collected minerals as a teenager. He studied geology and chemistry at Pennsylvania State University (Bachelor's degree in 1930) and at the University of Michigan , where he made his master's degree in 1931 and received his doctorate in 1934. There he was particularly influenced by Edward H. Kraus in his turn to physical chemistry as the basis of mineralogy. He learned the necessary methods at the geophysical laboratory in Washington DC From 1935 he was assistant professor for mineralogical ceramics at Rutgers University and from 1938 he worked for the US Bureau of Mines in Tuscaloosa ( Alabama ) on the petrology of clay. This was followed by a position as a petrologist at the US Department of Agriculture in Beltsville ( Maryland ). From 1942 he was with the US Geological Survey , where he stayed for the rest of his career. In 1977 he retired. He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis .

Faust developed a method of thermal analysis of minerals. He dealt with clay minerals, the geochemistry of serpentines and was the first to describe the minerals huntite , pecoraite and schoenfliesite . He also studied the magnesite - deposits in Currant Creek (Nevada) and mapped in the Watchung basalts in New Jersey.

Honors and memberships

In 1973 he became an honorary member of the German Mineralogical Society . In 1965 he was President of the Mineralogical Society of America .

The mineral Faustite described by Richard C. Erd, Margaret D. Foster and Paul D. Proctor in 1953 is named after him.

literature

  • Michael Fleischer: Memorial of Georg T. Faust August 27, 1908 - February 7, 1985 . In: American Mineralogist . tape 71 , 1886, p. 843–844 (English, online [PDF; 264 kB ; accessed on May 8, 2015]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard C. Erd, Margaret D. Foster, Paul D. Proctor: Faustite, a new mineral, the zinc analogue of turquois. In: American Mineralogist , Volume 38, 1953, pp. 964–972 ( PDF; 542.9 kB )
personal data
SURNAME Faust, George T.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Faust, George Tobias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , United States
DATE OF DEATH 7th February 1985
Place of death Morristown , New Jersey , United States