Charles Langmuir • Docteur honoris causa

Charles Langmuir is an internationally renowned geochemist and professor at Harvard University. His expertise lies in the petrology of basalts, mainly oceanic. He has been highly creative in this field, with over 160 articles, including more than 30 in journals such as Nature, Science and Nature Geoscience.

A lecture by Professor Charles Langmuir was held on March 25, 2025, as part of the “Grandes conférences scientifiques de l’ULiège”.

Charles Langmuir is co-founder of one of the first geochemistry journals to be fully accessible online: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G3). He has always been committed to ensuring that data is accessible quickly and freely. He recognized early on the growth in the amount of geochemical data and, in the late 1990s, founded the geochemical database “PETDB,” which later evolved into "GEOROC " (657,440 samples, 252,8070 analyses). This database is freely accessible and subsidized by public institutions. Widely used by researchers, it has led to numerous important publications.

Charles Langmuir has participated in 16 oceanographic missions and six more are planned. He has developed a new sampling method, wax coring, which has tripled the efficiency of oceanic basalt sampling.

Charles Langmuir recently received an ERC Synergy Grant (2023) to analyze the links between glacial and volcanic cycles in relation to climate. He has received numerous scientific awards and distinctions. He is a fellow of several scientific societies.

Charles Langmuir is mindful of the role that researchers can play in informing the public about climate change, which can affect the balance of our democratic societies. To this end, he has written a book entitled How to Build a Habitable Planet(Princeton University Press, 2012). This book was recognized upon its release as the best book in earth sciences: it traces the history of our planet and shows how the human species has taken possession of it to exploit its resources without restraint and without respect for the habitats of other species. The author proposes adopting a more conservative attitude and consuming fewer natural resources.

An extraordinary geochemist who has inspired many petrologists and geochemists, Charles Langmuir is a researcher who is deeply connected to the issues facing our society.

Sources

Notice based on the presentation by Prof. Jacqueline Vander Auwera to the Faculty of Science Council.