FLEISCHER, MICHAEL

FLEISCHER, MICHAEL (1908–1998), U.S. geochemist. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to parents who emigrated from Germany, he received his B.S. in chemistry (1930) and Ph.D. (1933) from Yale University. From 1933 to 1936 he was a research associate, Department of Chemistry, Yale University, Fleischer joined the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute in Washington in 1936, and from 1939 to 1978 was with the United States Geological Survey. From 1978 to 1995, he was research associate, Department of Mineral Sciences, Smithsonian Institution. He was professorial lecturer (1957–65) at the George Washington University, assistant editor of Chemical Abstracts from 1940, and an associate editor of the American Mineralogist. He served as president of the Mineralogical Society of America, of the Geochemistry Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and as vice president of the Geological Society of America. In 1959 he was appointed president of the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names of the International Mineralogical Association. Fleischer contributed many papers to scientific journals, dealing with chemical and analytical mineralogy, specific minerals (particularly of manganese), and the abundance of the individual elements in the earth's crust. (Samuel Aaron Miller / Bracha Rager (2nd ed.)