Arthur Francis Buddington

Arthur Francis "Bud" Buddington (November 29, 1890 – December 25, 1980) was an American geologist. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, he grew up there and in West Mystic, Connecticut. He was educated at Brown University and Princeton University.

After short stints teaching at Brown and Princeton, serving in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War I, and researching at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Buddington settled at Princeton, where he taught for nearly 40 years. He chaired the Department of Geology from 1936 to 1950. He also had a long career with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), doing field work for that agency in Alaska, Oregon, and the northeastern United States.

Buddington was elected to the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His years of work for the USGS earned him the Distinguished Service award of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Early life and education

Buddington was born November 29, 1890, in Wilmington, Delaware, to Mary Salina Buddington (née Wheeler) and Osmer G. Buddington. His parents' families had been in Connecticut since the 1600s, and he was descended from men who fought for the United States in the American Revolution. His father was a Baptist minister who supplemented his income by farming crops and raising chickens.

Arthur Buddington was educated in public schools of Wilmington, Mystic, and Westerly, Rhode Island. In 1908 he graduated from Westerly High School. He then matriculated at Brown University. After an unpleasant year in the liberal arts program, he switched to the sciences. He graduated second in his class in 1912

After graduating Buddington remained at Brown to earn a Master of Science degree in 1913, writing a master's thesis on fossiliferous Carboniferous shales that had recently been discovered on College Hill, That same year he enrolled in graduate school at Princeton University to study under Charles Henry Smyth, Jr., who was doing some of the first work in chemical petrology (using chemistry to study ordinary rocks rather than minerals) in the United States. Buddington earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1916. where Buddington was a Ph.D. student, a professor, and department chair.

After earning his Ph.D. Buddington had a series of brief appointments. He was first a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton, but in 1917 he took a position teaching at Brown. In early 1918, with World War I raging, he returned to Princeton to teach military aerial observation in its aviation ground school. In April he enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army's Signal Corps. and then returned to Brown once again to teach. Later that year he joined the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.

Buddington also had a long association with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). He spent the summers from 1921 to 1925 producing geological maps of southeastern Alaska. The summer of 1930 was devoted to mapping Oregon portions of the Cascade Range. In 1943 the USGS appointed him head of what would become a 17-year field project on the iron ores of the northeastern United States. This large collaboration produced some important scientific results and identified several economically compelling ore deposits. 1943 – elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1947 – elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1954 – Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America 1956 – Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America 1963 – Distinguished Service Award of the United States Department of the Interior

Buddington held honorary degrees from Brown, Franklin and Marshall College, and the University of Liège. and he published 23 papers in the following years. He died December 25, 1980, in Quincy, Massachusetts, and was buried in Princeton.

Buddingtonite is named in his honor.

Personal life

During his time at the Geophysical Laboratory, Buddington met Jene Elizabeth Muntz, originally of David City, Nebraska. They married in 1924 and remained married until her death in 1975. She played an important role in his field work: he had never learned to drive a car, so she drove him through the Adirondacks. They had one child, a daughter.