Bowen, Norman Levi

Born June 21,1887, in Kingston, Canada; died Sept. 11,1956, in Washington, D. C. American petrographer. Educated in Canada.

During 1912–37 and after 1947, Bowen worked at Carnegie Institute. From 1937 to 1947, he was a professor at the University of Chicago. He is well known for his experimental studies in the area of siliceous physicochemical balances. Bowen established the so-called reaction principle, according to which the product of crystallization of a molten silicate in many cases reacts, upon further cooling, with the remaining liquid and in this way obtains a new chemism—either within the limits of the same crystallization phase or with the formation of new combinations and phases. According to Bowen, the general development of all our planet’s magma proceeds from peridotites through gabbroic basalts to granites.