CHARLES PREWITT AS THE MULTI-ANVIL HIGH-PRESSURE SCIENTIST

Twenty-five years ago, there were no multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus in active use in the geosciences in U.S. laboratories. In January 1981, Charles Prewitt attended the 2nd US-Japan High-Pressure Geophysics Seminar in Hakone, Japan; after the meeting, he visited many high-pressure laboratories and saw, for the first time, the new generations of Kawai-type and DIA-type multi-anvil apparatus developed by the Japanese scientists over the previous 20 years. This experience convinced Prewitt to join with his Stony Brook colleagues Donald Weidner and Robert Liebermann to establish the first multi-anvil, high-pressure laboratory in the U.S. of this new generation. They submitted a successful proposal in 1983 to the new Instrumentation and Facilities Program established by the NSF Division of Earth Sciences. In July 1984, Prewitt and Weidner joined Liebermann in Japan for a "shopping" trip to various Japanese laboratories and companies. This trip led to the acquisition of two multi-anvil apparatus: a DIA-type apparatus which was installed at Stony Brook in July 1985 and christened "SAM 85"; and a Kawai-type, 2000-ton uniaxial split-sphere apparatus (USSA-2000) delivered in December 1985. The purchase and acquisition of these new high-pressure devices would not have been possible without the active participation and collaboration of our Japanes colleagues, including S. Akimoto, O. Fukunaga, E. Ito, H. Kanda, M. Kato, M. Kumazawa, E. Ohtani, O. Shimomura, Y. Sato-Sorensen, H. Sawamoto, S. Sueno, E. Takahashi, M. Wakatsuki, H. Watanabe, and T. Yagi.

In the subsequent years, Prewitt oversaw a project to grow single-crystal specimens of high-pressure phases of minerals for investigation of their crystal structure by X-ray diffraction techniques. The Stony Brook High Pressure Laboratory, established in 1985 by Prewitt, Weidner and Liebermann, later formed one of the cornerstones of the NSF Science and Technology Center for High Pressure Research (CHiPR: 1991-2002). In 2003, there are now many multi-anvil, high-pressure laboratories active in the geosciences in the U.S.; the role of Charles Prewitt in spearheading this evolution over the past 20+ years is highlighted in this talk.