Lacroix, François Antoine Alfred

Lacroix, François Antoine Alfred 

Born Feb. 4, 1863, in Mâcon; died Mar. 16, 1948, in Paris. French mineralogist and petrographer. Member of the French Academy of Sciences (1904).

Lacroix graduated from a pharmaceutical institute in Paris in 1887. In 1893 he became a professor at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle, where he worked until the end of his life. Beginning in 1914 he was the permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. His principal works were on theoretical and regional mineralogy, petrography, and volcanology. He described the eruption of Mount Péleé on the island of Martinique in 1902. In 1930 the American Geological Society awarded him the Penrose Medal. Lacroix was a member of a number of scientific societies and academies (including honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1924). The mineral lacroixite was named in honor of Lacroix; its chemical formula is Na4Ca2 Al₃[P0₄]3(OH,F)₈.

WORKS

Minéralogie de la France et de ses colonies, vols. 1–5. Paris, 1893–1913.
La Montagne Pelée après ses éruptions. Paris, 1908.
Minéralogie de Madagascar, vols. 1–3. Paris, 1922–23.

REFERENCES

Zavaritskii, A. “Al’fred Lakrua.” Izv. AN SSSR: Seriia geologicheskaia, 1949, no. 2.
Orcel, J. “Alfred Lacroix (1863–1948).” Bulletin de la Société géologique de France, 1949, vol. 19, fases. 4–6. (Contains a bibliography.)