Victor Goldschmidt

Victor Moritz Goldschmidt
Young Victor Goldschmidt
Born	(1888-01-27)January 27, 1888 Zürich, Switzerland
Died	March 20, 1947(1947-03-20) (aged 59) Oslo, Norway
Fields	Geochemistry
Institutions	University of Oslo
Alma mater	University of Oslo
Thesis	Die Kontaktmetamorphose im Kristianiagebiet and Geologisch-petrographische Studien im Hochgebirge des südlichen Norwegens (1911)
Doctoral advisor	Waldemar C. Brøgger
Doctoral students	Brian Harold Mason
Known for	Geochemistry
Influenced	Alfred Edward Ringwood
Notable awards	Foreign Member of the Royal Society Elliott Cresson Medal (1903) Wollaston Medal (1944)

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

Goldschmidt was born in Zürich. His Jewish parents, Heinrich Jacob Goldschmidt and Amelie Koehne named their son after a colleague of Heinrich, Victor Meyer. There was a history of great scientists and philosophers in both families. The Goldschmidt family came to Norway 1901 when Heinrich Goldschmidt took over a chair as Professor of Chemistry in Kristiania (Oslo).

Goldschmidt’s first important contribution was within the field of geology and mineralogy. His two first larger works were his doctoral thesis Die Kontaktmetamorphose im Kristianiagebiet and Geologisch-petrographische Studien im Hochgebirge des südlichen Norwegens.

A series of publications under the title Geochemische Verteilungsgesetze der Elemente (geochemical laws of distribution of the elements) is usually referred to as the start of geochemistry, the science that describes the distribution of the chemical elements in nature. It was in this book that he coined the term lanthanide contraction.

Few Norwegian scientisis made such an early and rapid career as Goldschmidt. He secured a post-doctoral fellowship from the university at the age of 21 (1909). He obtained his Norwegian doctor’s degree when he was 23 years old (1911).

In 1912 Goldschmidt got the most distinguished Norwegian scientific award (the Fridtjof Nansen belonning) for his dissertation on the topic of Die Kontaktmetamorphose im Kristianiagebiet ("The contact metamorphism around Kristiania). The same year he was made Docent (Associate Professor) of Mineralogy and Petrography at the University of Oslo (known at that time as "Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet").