posted 12-09-2009 07:51 PM               

Brian H. Mason, 92, a Smithsonian scientist who was internationally known for his study of meteorites and moon rocks and who was the first to discover that a rock found in Antarctica came from the moon, died of renal failure Dec. 3 at his home in Chevy Chase.

Dr. Mason wrote one of his field's fundamental books, "Principles of Geochemistry," in 1952, and it was being used in classrooms 30 years later.

In 1962, he wrote what became a standard text on meteorites, and in 1970, he co-wrote a 179-page report on the lunar rocks collected by Apollo astronauts. He edited a seminal book of mineralogy that described every mineral known to science, where each was found and all its physical properties, an exhaustive work in 1,800 pages.

"Brian Mason was probably the best known and most revered geochemist of his generation," said Sorena S. Sorensen, chair of the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. "He was one of the last polymaths of the earth sciences that we'll ever see. He could look at a rock and know something important about it. He could pick it up and elicit its story."