Life
Mason was born in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, in 1917 and was brought up in Christchurch, New Zealand. He studied at Christchurch Boys' High School and geology and chemistry at Canterbury University College. In 1943, he completed a PhD in geochemistry at the University of Stockholm under Victor Goldschmidt.
Mason returned to Christchurch where he was appointed lecture of Geology at Canterbury University College. He tough there for two years. In 1947, Mason was appointed Professor of mineralogy at University of Indiana 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, DC.
Two minerals have been named after Brian. Brianite is a phosphate mineral and Stenhuggarite (from the Swedish ‘stenhuggar’ – ‘mason’) is a rare iron-antimony mineral. Asteroid 12926 Brianmason is also named in his honor.
Mason won the Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society in 1972 and the Roebling Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America in 1993.
Mason passed on Dec. 3, 2009 from renal failure. He was survived by his stepson, Frank W. Turner, who lived with Dr. Mason in Chevy Chase, MD.
Mason's third wife, Margarita C. Babb, and mother of Frank Turner, passed on February 3, 2009 due to complications from multiple myeloma (a blood cancer). Mason and Margarita were married for 15 years.
Dr. 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.
Read more about this topic: Brian Harold Mason
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I have given the best of myself and the best work of my life to help obtain political freedom for women, knowing that upon this rests the hope not only of the freedom of men but of the onward civilization of the world.”
—Mary S. Anthony (1827–1907)
“I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure—the web—of society needed reform, not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the daily work ... is the underlying necessity of all prosperity.... There can be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)