Robert Garrels
Robert Minard Garrels ( born August 24, 1916 in Detroit, Michigan, † March 8, 1988 in Saint Petersburg, Florida) was an American geochemist. Garrels applied experimental data and methods of physical chemistry to problems in geology and geochemistry. His book, Solutions, Minerals, and Equilibria, which he brought out in 1965 along with Charles L. Christ revolutionized the geochemistry of aqueous solutions.
Scientific career
Garrels put 1937 his B. A. in geology at the University of Michigan from. In 1939, he graduated from Northwestern University with a MS from his thesis in 1938 dealt with iron ore in Newfoundland. His Ph.D. he was awarded in 1941 with a thesis on laboratory studies of complex compounds of lead and chloride ions in aqueous solution.
Garrels worked during World War II for the United States Geological Survey (USGS ) and then returned to Northwestern University to teach there until 1952. In 1952 he published a scientific paper Origin and Classification of Chemical sediments in terms of pH and oxidation - reduction potential with William C. Krumbein. The essay was a classic study of sedimentary rocks from the standpoint of physical chemistry, who revolutionized the sedimentary geochemistry and the aqueous solutions together with the essays published below.
After some time again worked for the USGS, he resumed his academic career back on and went in 1955 to Harvard, where he received a full professorship in 1957. His work as well as the laboratory headed by him brought forth many classical works. In addition to the factory Solutions, Minerals, and Equilibria he and his colleagues published the following classical studies:
- Oxidation of Pyrite by Iron Sulfate Solutions
- Stability of Some Carbonates at 25 ° C and One Atmosphere Total Pressure
- Control of Carbonate Solubility by Carbonate Complexes
- A Chemical Model for Sea Water at 25 ° C and One Atmosphere Total Pressure
Garrels returned in 1965 to Northwestern University and led by influential studies on the buffering of seawater by silicate and carbonate, also on the origin of groundwater and the theoretical treatment of irreversible reactions in geochemical processes.
In 1969 he moved to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and later at the University of Hawaii. During this period he investigated the thermodynamic properties of silicate minerals, and published in 1974 Cycling of Carbon, Sulfur, and Oxygen through Geologic Time with Ed Perry.
In 1974, he returned to Northwestern University and published along with Abraham Lerman and Fred MacKenzie important studies of the isotopic composition of sulfur and carbon in Phanerozoic rocks.
In 1979 he went to the University of South Florida, where he published in 1983 the book The Carbonate - Silicate Geochemical Cycle and Its Effect on Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide over the Past 100 Million Years. Though he fought against his cancer, he continued to work: In 1986, he published the work Modeling Atmospheric 02 in the Global Sedimentary Redox Cycle and 1987 A model for the deposition of the Precambrian Banded Iron Formations Micro.
Awards and Honors
Garrels received numerous awards and honors, including:
- Election to the National Academy of Sciences (1961 )
- Elected President of the Geochemical Society ( 1962)
- Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of America (1966)
- Goldschmidt Award of the Geochemical Society ( 1973)
- Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America (1978 )
- Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London ( 1981)
- Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America (1981 )