Accomplishments
His scientific career was a pursuit of the understanding of every aspect of the water cycle. Throughout his career, he studied water in oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers, the atmosphere, magmas, minerals, rocks, meteorites, plants, animals and the moon. He made major contributions to a number of fields through application of stable isotope geochemistry. Friedman also made significant contributions to the development of instruments to detect helium in exploring uranium, thorium, petroleum and natural gas and in predicting earthquakes. In the 1940s, he made major contributions to the science of hydrothermal growth of quartz which made possible the development of the synthetic quartz industry.
His work was featured in more than 200 publications. His first was published in 1945 and his last will be published posthumously in 2005 in a USGS Professional Paper on Yellowstone National Park. He was long associated with study of geothermal features and water issues of Yellowstone.
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