Mauguin, Charles

▪ French mineralogist

in full  Charles-victor Mauguin  

born Sept. 19, 1878, Provins, Fr.

died April 25, 1958, Villejuif

      French mineralogist and crystallographer who first studied the structure of the mica group of minerals by X-ray-diffraction analysis. His work was one of the earliest contributions to the systematic study of the silicate minerals.

      Mauguin was educated at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and in 1919 he joined the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris, where he served (1933–48) as professor of mineralogy. His study of the micas enabled him to explain their characteristic tendency to split into thin sheets on the basis of their internal atomic structure. His modification of an earlier system of symbols for designating the symmetry properties of crystals was adopted (1935) as the international standard.

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