Dr. Enver Murad was an astute mineralogist, active soil scientist, dedicated editor, successful director, fun-loving colleague, and amiable person whom we greatly missed.

Enver’s name is inextricably linked with Mössbauer spectroscopy of Fe oxides and clay minerals.Little was known about Mössbauer spectroscopy of these minerals before Enver transformed this technique into a major tool for characterizing Fe-bearing minerals (Murad, 1988; Murad & Cashion, 2004). This is now commonly used for identification of Feminerals and soil phases in many locations, including the planet Mars!

Enver was born in Berlin, attended British schools in several major cities around the Mediterranean Sea. This likely fostered his gift for languages. Enver was fluent in German, English, and Greek, and spoke Arabic, French, and Turkish well. In 1967 he completed a Master’s Diploma in Mineralogy at the Darmstadt Technical University, followed by a PhD at the University of Frankfurt in 1970. He became a Research Fellow at the He joined the Soil Science Department at the Technical University of Munich in 1975, where he met Prof. Udo Schwertmann and later completed a Habilitation in 1986.

He enjoyed working with colleagues around the world and frequently arranged overseas appointments (bringing his wife Gerda and daughters Nadja and Nicole with him when possible) to North Carolina State University in 1983 to work with Larry Bowen, then to the Department of Physics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia for a few visits from 1989-2004 to work with John Cashion, followed by several appointments from 2000-2015 at the Department of Chemistry, University of Minas Gerais at Belo Horizonte, Brazil with José Fabris.

Enver served as Director of the Department of Geological Services,