Charles PalacheDied 5 Dec 1954 at age 85 (born 18 Jul 1869).American mineralogist who was one of the most eminent crystallographers and mineralogists of the world, he lived in a period of revolutionary developments in mineralogical science. At the University of California (PhD 1887), he did the field work for the first geologic maps of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Berkley area. In 1895, while at Heidelberg taking courses in petrography, he was introduced to morphological crystallography by Victor Goldschmidt. Palache threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of crystals, and laid the foundation for the work he pursued vigorously for the next fifty-five years.Image: Crystal drawing of usual graphite crystal from Sterling Hill, NJ, from Palache's 1941 paper in American Mineralogist. |
