Wednesday, January 23, 2019
An early memory -
In 1974, the U.S. Geological Survey had moved recently from downtown Washington to the then rural suburbs of Reston, VA. The Branch of Experimental Geochemistry and Mineralogy had an active experimental group; Steve Huebner ran a high temperature laboratory studying element partitioning between crystals and melt among other projects. In 1974, Bruce Lipin and Steve Luddington joined the EG&M Branch as post-docs to collaborate with Steve on work he was doing related to the origin of the Lunar basalts. Bruce had much experience on the chemistry and petrology of oxides through his Ph.D. work at Penn State with Arnulf Muan. The USGS work involved a high temperature furnace; Bruce and Steve had one each that they labelled “Sundance” and “Butch Cassidy”. After this stint with the EG&M Branch, Bruce joined the Branch of Eastern Mineral Resources where he spent the rest of his USGS career. But once a member of EG&M, always a member. In October 2013, if I remember correctly, Bruce held a very nice EG&M reunion at the Midtown in Reston.
