GOLDSCHMIDT, VICTOR MORITZ

GOLDSCHMIDT, VICTOR MORITZ (1888–1947), Norwegian mineralogist, crystallographer, and geochemist. Goldschmidt was born in Zurich, son of Heinrich Jacob Goldschmidt (1857–1937) who became professor of chemistry at Oslo University in 1901. In 1914 Victor Goldschmidt was appointed professor of crystallography, mineralogy, and petrography at Oslo University. In 1929 he was appointed director of the mineralogical-petrographical institute at Goettingen, but in 1935 left Nazi Germany to return to Oslo. He was chairman of the Norwegian Friends of the Hebrew University in 1937. After the invasion of Norway in 1940, Goldschmidt was hunted by the Nazis and was arrested on several occasions. The underground succeeded in smuggling him to Sweden in December 1942 and from there he was flown to England, where he devoted himself to work connected with atomic energy. He returned to Oslo in 1946. Goldschmidt was one of the great mineralogists and crystallographers of his generation and is recognized as the founder of the new science of geochemistry. Already in his doctoral thesis in 1911 on the "Phenomena of Metamorphosis" he established a basis for classifying the metamorphic minerals according to general physico-chemical laws, proposed the concept of "stability limits" of minerals, and developed the idea of mineral facies that became the central idea in mineralogy-petrography. Later he developed the notion of type relationships of rocks and laid the foundations of genetic classification of magnetic rocks. Besides these main fields of work, he also explained the distribution of chemical elements in the earth's crust and defined the laws of distribution that result from the natural factors in elements themselves. Goldschmidt was also interested in problems of practical research including the formation of mineral pigments, the production of aluminum from silicates, the use of biotite as a fertilizer, and the use of olivine as a raw material for the production of materials resistant to chemical and heat reactions. Goldschmidt's main works were Die Kontaktmetamorphose im Kristianiagebiet (1911); Geologisch-petrographische Studien… (5 vols. 1912–21); Geochemische Verteilungsgesetze der Elemente (9 parts, 1923–38).

bibliography:

D. Oftedal, in: Geological Society of America, Proceedings 1947 (1948), 149–54, includes bibliography; C.E. Tilley, in: Royal Society of London, Obituary Notices…, 17 (1948), 51–66; Norwegian Academy of Science, Årbok 1947 (1948), 85–102.

[Yakov K. Bentor]