Content area
Full Text
The "Picasso of low-temperature geochemistry" has died.
Robert Arbuckle Berner, an acclaimed geochemist known for his contributions to understanding the carbon cycle, was born in Erie, Pennsylvania on 25 November 1935. He enrolled at Purdue University in 1953 to study chemistry, but left after one semester because he felt pushed towards engineering. He transferred to the University of Michigan to read mathematics and physics, but found the fields "too demanding" and so switched to geology. In his senior year, Professor Berner met his future wife Elizabeth - the daughter of the geologist Marshall Kay. The couple married in 1959 and went on to...