Presentation of the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society Of

American Mineralogist, Volume 79, pages 768-769, 1994 Presentationof the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America for 1993 to Brian Mason Srumr Ross Tlvr,on ResearchSchool of Earth Sciences,Australian National University, P.O. Box 4, Canberra,A.C.T. 2601, Australia It is a great pleasure and privilege to introduce Dr. After the war, he returned to New Znalandas a lecturer Brian Mason as the recipient of the Roebling Medal of in the Geology Department at Canterbury University the Mineralogical Society of America. I first met Brian College,where I encounteredhim. It was difficult to dis- when he taught the first-year coursein mineralogy at what tinguish Brian from the students; to this day he retains was then Canterbury University Collegeofthe University both a youthful appearanceand manner. He still makes of New Zealand.Brian was a graduateof that department, arduous field trips to the west coast of the South Island and we shared a common mentor, Robin S. Allan, after of New Zealand,famous for its very high annual rainfall. whom the Allan Hills are named. He was an expert in He continues to publish many papers on local geological Tertiary brachiopods,and I don't think that he ever men- studies in New Znaland. tioned the words "geochemistry" or "meteorite" in his Brian taught mineralogy for a few years in New Zea- lectures.Nevertheless, both Brian and I were stimulated land before being tempted to the Department of Geology by the teaching of that remarkable man, a friend of the at Indiana University, where I becamehis Ph.D. student. philosopher Karl Popper, who was on campus at that My initial task on arrival was to proofread the page proofs time, a refugeefrom Hitler's Germany. of the first edition of the famous Principles of Geochem- Brian graduated with a double master's degree with lstry (now in its fourth edition, with salesof more than first class honors in geology and chemistry, a rare feat, 50,000 copiesand with translationsinto German, Rus- since the University of New Tnalandmaster's degree was sian, Spanish, Portuguese,Japanese, and Malay). It was at that time the highest postgraduatedegree, and equiv- a great way to get up to speedin what was then a very alent, in my reckoning, to doctoral degreesfrom other new subject. Brian went to the American Museum of universities. Brian's interest in geochemistrywas sparked Natural History in New York as a mineralogy curator by readingGoldschmidt's 1937 paper, "The Principlesof after a few years in Bloomington. I was thus his only Distribution of Chemical Elements in Minerals and doctoral student: I have always presumed that, after me, Rocks," given as an invited lecture to the Chemical So- he decided one had been enough. However, he taught ciety of London. It's still a remarkable summary. Brian geochemistryand meteoritics at Columbia, where his stu- was sufficiently stimulated by reading this paper to write dents included Ed Anders, who tells me that was the to Goldschmidt, who invited him to Oslo as a graduate startingpoint of his meteoriccareer. student. Brian has continued in museum work since then, offi- Brian's researchon the geochemistryof Te was rudely cial retirement being only a formality. His book Miner- intemrptedearly on the morning of April 9, 1940,by the alogy (with L. C. Berry) appearedin 1959 and is now in arrival of the German anny. He made his escapeto Swe- its third edition. In 1960 he beganto publish paperson den, spendinga couple of weekswith the Norwegianarmy meteorites (starting with four in that year) and hasn't let en route, and was only slightly inconveniencedby a leg up since. His book Meteorites (1962), written during a in plaster, which he had broken in a skiing accidenta few visit to Japan, introduced the subject to most ofus pres- days before. Brian, marooned in Stockholm, completed ent. It has all the hallmarks of Brian's work: accuracy, his Ph.D. dissertation,"Mineralogical Aspectsof the Sys- clarity, and readability. With apologiesto the authors of tem FeO-FerOr-MnO-MnO.." He also publishedmany similar books, I don't think that anyone has matched it. mineralogical studies and carried out some crystal struc- I only regret that he never wrote a second edition. In ture determinations using the laborious methods of the total, he has published more than 230 books and papers. precomputer a9e,an exercisethat he told me cured him He was a participant in the great tektite controversy in of any further interest in crystallographicstructural work. the 1960s. At the Corning tektite conferencein March Goldschmidt, after narrowly escaping deportation to 1969,he proposedthat sincethe debatewould be settled the concentration camps in Poland, was spirited to Swe- in July by the Apollo I I mission, the meeting should vote den by the Norwegian resistanceand was then flown to on lunar vs. terrestrial origins. It was a triumph of de- England. He reminded the British authorities that there mocracy;I recall the vote was 50-50. was a bright young scientist in Sweden who might be At the time of the Apollo lunar missions,Brian became useful in the war effort, and so Brian duly undertook yet immersed in lunar studies and went on meteorite- and another hazardousjourney, this time by air acrossGer- tektite-hunting expeditions in Australia. He often visited man-occupied Norway to England. my laboratory in Canberra and becamean accomplished 0003-004x/94l0708-0768$02.00 768 PRESENTATION OF AWARDS FOR 1993 769 analyston the spark sourcemass spectrometer. He worked I could continue for a long time; Brian stories are le- extensively on the Allende meteorite. In Canberra, hav- gion. He has been president of the Meteoritical Society; ing persuadedme that the refractoryinclusions, or CAI, we are all in his debt for his most recent accomplishment, in Allende might be worth looking at, he then discovered the remarkable account of the life of Victor Moritz Gold- their curious REE patterns and erectedthe group classi- schmidt, a book that once again demonstratesBrian's fication,of which the most famousexample is the exotic many talents. He was probably the only personwho could Group II REE pattern. have written such an account. The influx of meteoritesfrom the Anlarctic in the 1970s It gives me, as one very much indebtedto him, great suddenlyput a premium on peoplewho could deal with pleasurein presentingBrian Mason to you for the highest their staggeringnumbers; Brian quickly became,and has honor the Mineralogical Society of America can award, remained, in demand as one of the few who can instantly the Roebling Medal. identify and classify meteorites. He was the first to draw attention to the existenceof a meteorite that looked very much like a lunar highlandbreccia (Allan Hills 81005)..

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