Hans Suess

Hans Eduard Suess ( born December 16, 1909 in Vienna, † September 20, 1993 ) was an Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist.

Suess comes from a dynasty of famous geologists. His father was Franz Eduard Suess, his grandfather Eduard Suess. He received his doctorate in 1935 at the University. About his interest in chemical equilibrium reactions he became a consultant in the separation of heavy water in the hydroelectric power plant of Norsk Hydro in Vemork, Norway in World War II. After the war he was involved in the development of the nuclear shell model with Otto Haxel and J. Hans D. Jensen.

In 1950 he emigrated to the USA and was last Professor of Chemistry at the University of California at La Jolla. He worked in the field of calibration of radiocarbon dating and Cosmochemistry, where he examined the elemental abundances.

Ironically, the mineral is named Suessit ( an Fe -Ni - silicide from Enstatitchondriten ) after him and not after his famous geologists ancestors.