Goldschmidt and the Modernizing of Geochemistry

His thesis attracted much attention and he was offered a professorship in Stockholm. VMG s previous teacher, W. G. Brogger, a famous geologist and also a politician, arranged for Goldschmidt to stay in Oslo. At the age of 26 

2) Metamorphism is a process by which rocks are altered in composition and structure. Pressure, heat and the introduction of new chemical substances are the principal causes. Contact meta- 

Germanium has obviously been enriched in the plants that in prehistoric times were the origin of the earth s coal deposits. Goldschmidt discovered germanium in coke ash. But this discovery did not arise from a serious sample selection - he formd germanium in the ash from the fireplace in his own institute. The biochemical processes behind enrichment of this type have not been fidly elucidated. 

This interwar period was a rather happy time and he was able to pursue his spectroscopic studies vigorously. He planned to design and manufacture a mass spectrometer for the determination of the ratio between isotope masses. The outbreak of World War II stopped these plans. 

VMG was arrested and brought, in October 1942, to the Grini concentration camp. In November he was sent to Oslo harbor and a waiting ship that was to take him and other Norwegians of Jewish descent to Poland and the gas chambers. At the last moment he was set free. There are different versions of the rescue operation. One version is that men from the resistance movement in stolen Gestapo uniforms fetched him, the reason being that the authorities had been aware of his scientific capacity and had decided to use him in the production of heavy water in Rjukan for the development of an atomic bomb. What is clear, however, is that men from the resistance movement smuggled him out to Sweden. 

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