Brian Mason (geochemist)

Brian Harold Mason (18 April 1917 – 3 December 2009) was a New Zealand geochemist and mineralogist who was one of the pioneers in the study of meteorites. He played a leading part in understanding the nature of the solar system through his studies of meteorites and lunar rocks. He also examined and classified thousands of meteorites collected from Antarctica.
Life.
Mason was born in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, in 1917 and was brought up in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School and studied geology and chemistry at Canterbury University College, graduating MSc with first-class honours in 1939. In 1943, he completed a PhD in geochemistry at the University of Stockholm under Victor Goldschmidt.
He returned to Christchurch where he was appointed lecture of geology at Canterbury University College. He taught there for two years. In 1947, he was appointed professor of mineralogy at Indiana University where he was based for rest of his life. He was a curator of mineralogy at both the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Mason died in Washington, D.C., on 3 December 2009 from renal failure. He was survived by his stepson, Frank W. Turner, who lived with Mason in Chevy Chase, MD.
His third wife, Margarita C. Babb, and mother of Frank Turner, died on 3 February 2009 due to complications from multiple myeloma. They were married for 15 years. Mason was married two other times, first to Anne Marie Linn and then to Virginia Powell; both marriages ended in divorce. He had a son, George, with his second wife. George died in a mountain climbing accident in 1981 at the age of 20.