Obituary: USGS Scientist Irving Friedman

From the USGS website:

Irving Friedman, a longtime U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist and a pioneer in geochemistry, died on June 28, at the age of 85.

Friedman was born in New York City on January 12, 1920. He obtained a B.S. degree in chemistry from Montana State University, a M.S. degree in chemistry from Washington State University, and a Ph.D. in geochemistry at the University of Chicago. Friedman was a member of the famed group of post doctoral researchers in Nobel laureate Harold Urey’s laboratory at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. There, Friedman built the first mass spectrometer for routine measurement of the hydrogen isotope composition of water. Hydrogen has two stable isotopes and much can be deduced about the history of water from their proportions. Friedman is called the "father of isotope hydrology."...