| Birth Date: | 19 November 1925 |
| Birth Place: | Igis, Graubünden, Switzerland |
| Death Place: | Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
| Hans Peter Eugster | |
| Education: | ETH Zurich |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Paul Niggli |
| Academic Advisors: | Hatten Yoder |
| Workplaces: | Carnegie Institution Johns Hopkins University University of Wyoming |
| Doctoral Students: | Lawrence Alexander Hardie |
| Awards: | Roebling Medal V. M. Goldschmidt Award |
Hans Peter Eugster (November 19, 1925, in Igis, Switzerland – December 17, 1987, in Baltimore, US) was a Swiss-American geochemist, mineralogist, and petrologist.[1] [2]
Eugster studied at ETH Zurich with Diplom in 1948 and D.Sc. in 1951 under Paul Niggli with a dissertation on metamorphic recrystallization in the eastern part of the Aar massif. As a postdoctoral fellow, Eugster studied optical spectroscopy from 1951 to 1952 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was also influenced by research on petrology done by James Burleigh Thompson's team at Harvard University.
Eugster then went to the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC. There, from 1952 to 1958, he studied experimental mineralogy under Hatten Yoder, specializing in high temperatures and aqueous fluid pressures.
He investigated the Green River Formation, later followed by worldwide investigations of other salt deposits. He became in 1958 Associate Professor of Experimental Petrology at Johns Hopkins University and in 1960 Professor. From 1983 to 1987 he was the director of the faculty of geosciences. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming from 1970 onwards. He died unexpectedly from an aortic rupture.[1]
He was elected in 1972 a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and, in the same year, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received in 1983 the Roebling Medal, in 1976 the V. M. Goldschmidt Award, and in 1971 the Arthur L. Day Medal. In 1985 he was president of the Mineralogical Society of America.[1]
The salt mineral eugsterite from Lake Victoria in Kenya was named after him in 1981.[3]
His brother was a chemist and professor at the University of Zurich. He was married to Elaine Koppelman.[4]