Aristides Brezina

Who was Aristides Brezina?

Aristides Brezina was an Austrian mineralogist born in Vienna.

In 1872 he graduated from the University of Tübingen, and afterwards taught crystallography at the University of Vienna. In 1878 he succeeded Austrian mineralogist Gustav Tschermak as custodian of the meteorite collection at Vienna, and from 1889 until 1896 he was director of the Mineralogisch-Petrographische Abteilung.

Brezina is known for his study of meteorites, and with German mineralogist Gustav Rose and Tschermak, he was co-architect of the "Rose-Tschermak-Brezina classification" system for meteorites. It was largely based on criteria such as texture and color, and was widely used from the mid-1880s to around 1920 when a simpler method of classification was proposed by George Thurland Prior.

Brezinaite, a mineral found in meteorites, is named after him.