Adolf Pabst (30 November 1899,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

– 3 April 1990,

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

) was an American mineralogist and geologist.

Biography

Pabst received in 1925 his bachelor's degree at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

and in 1928 his Ph.D. in geology and mineralogy at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

under George D. Louderbeck with a thesis on mineral inclusions in the granitic

pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

s of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

. For the academic year 1928/29 he won an American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowship for postdoctoral study; on this postdoc under

Victor Moritz Goldschmidt Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (27 January 1888 in Zürich – 20 March 1947 in Oslo) was a Norwegian mineralogist considered (together with Vladimir Vernadsky) to be the founder of modern geochemistry and crystal chemistry, developer of the G ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

, Pabst married Gudrun Lisabeth Bert. After returning to Berkeley, he became in 1929 an instructor, in 1931 an assistant professor, in 1936 an associate professor, and in 1944 a full professor. In the academic year 1938/39 he was a Guggenheim Fellow at the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and in the academic year 1955/56 a Fulbright Fellow at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

. In 1967 he retired as professor emeritus, but continued to do research at U. C. Berkeley and published steadily until 1984. He was in the academic year 1967/68 a visiting professor of mineralogy und crystallography at the

University of Nevada, Reno The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

and in the academic year 1968/69 a visiting professor of mineralogy at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. He was also in the academic year 1970/71 a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Berlin and the University of Kiel. Pabst was for many years on the editorial board of ''

American Mineralogist ''American Mineralogist: An International Journal of Earth and Planetary Materials'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the general fields of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology. It is an official journal of the Min ...

''. He first described various minerals, among which are

huttonite Huttonite is a thorium nesosilicate mineral with the chemical formula and which crystallizes in the monoclinic system. It is dimorphous with tetragonal thorite, and isostructual with monazite. An uncommon mineral, huttonite forms transpar ...

and

macdonaldite Macdonaldite is a rare barium silicate mineral with a chemical formula of BaCa4Si16O36(OH)2·10H2O.Alfors, J.T., Stinson, M.C., Matthews, R.A., and Pabst, A. (1965) Seven new barium minerals from eastern Fresno County, California. American Minera ...

Awards and honors

Pabst was in 1951 President of the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

, in 1980 President of the

International Mineralogical Association Founded in 1958, the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) is an international group of 40 national societies. The goal is to promote the science of mineralogy and to standardize the nomenclature of the 5000 plus known mineral species. Th ...

, and in the two years 1948 and 1949 President of the Crystallographic Society of America.History of the America Crystallographic Association
/ref> He was elected a member of the Mineralogical Society of London and in 1967 a Fellow der California Academy of Sciences. In 1971 he was made an honorary member of the German Mineralogical Society. He received in 1965 the

Roebling Medal The Roebling Medal is the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America for scientific eminence as represented primarily by scientific publication of outstanding original research in mineralogy. The award is named for Colonel Washington A. ...

and in 1974 the Austrian Mineralogical Society's Friedrich Becke Medal. The mineral pabstite is named in his honor.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pabst, Adolf 1899 births 1990 deaths American mineralogists University of Illinois alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty