Gero Kurat (1938-2009)

Gero Kurat was born on 18 November 1938 in Klagenfurt, Carinthia. He studied mineralogy and petrography at the University of Vienna, with a minor in physics. He graduated in 1963 and has worked at the Mineralogical-Petrographical Department of the Natural History Museum since 1962.

He was the head of this department from 1968 to 2003, and since 1976 had been a lecturer ("Dozent") at the University of Vienna. He was also a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1995, and an internationally renowned scientist. His interests covered meteorites, interplanetary dust (micrometeorites) and the Earth’s upper mantle. He died on 27 November 2009.

The mineral kuratite was named in honour of Kurat.

See the detailed obituary (in German) and the condensed obituary (in English).

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