Bevan French is most widely known for his pioneering work in planetary science and the field of impact cratering. He was one of the early workers on terrestrial impact materials along with Gene Shoemaker, Nick Short, Richard Grieve, Dieter Stöffler, Ed Chao, and others, at a time when impacts on the Earth were not considered mainstream – or even possible. Throughout his career Bevan was a champion for impact science, particularly centered on petrography, and geologic observations at terrestrial craters. His 1999 book, Traces of Catastrophe, published by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, is still touted as one of the standard introduction texts for impact cratering, and is used in classrooms across the world.
Bevan’s career in geology included a bachelor’s from Dartmouth College, Masters from Caltech, and a PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1964. Bevan started his geological work in metamorphic petrology, and his PhD centered on stability of siderite and metamorphism of iron formations in the Minnesota iron range. At a geological conference in Minneapolis in the mid-60’s, Bevan gave a talk about his thesis work there, which attracted a smart lady who was working for an iron-mining company. Two years later they married. Mary Hill French became a close partner in editing Bevan's manuscripts and joined in all the travels around the world. Together, they supported young investigators interested in terrestrial impacts until her passing in 2019.
Amusingly, Bevan's work in the Iron Range was well before recognition of the Sudbury impact structure and subsequent discovery of Sudbury ejecta in the iron range. In recent years, Bevan joked about now, 50 years later he was returning to his geologic roots with renewed interest in Sudbury and associated rocks on the Canadian Shield.
After graduating from John’s Hopkins Bevan quickly turned toward planetary science and joined NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1964, where he continued working on impact cratering, where he co-convened a conference on terrestrial impacts and co-edited the “Shock Metamorphism of Natural Materials” monograph where much of the establishing work of impact cratering was presented. Bevan then joined the Apollo lunar exploration program as a co-investigator on Apollo 11 and 12 samples, and as a trainer for astronauts of the Apollo 16 and 17 missions. In 1991, he co-edited, with Grant Heiken, the classic publication "Lunar Sourcebook", a one-volume reference encyclopedia of scientific and technical information about the Moon.
Bevan spent a few years (1972-1975) away from NASA as a Program Director of Geochemistry at NSF before returning back to NASA Headquarters in 1975. At NASA Bevan had many roles including Discipline Scientist for Planetary Materials (administering research on lunar samples, meteorites, and cosmic dust), Advanced Programs Scientist, Discipline Scientist for Special Projects, and Program Scientist for the Mars Observer mission.
Bevan officially retired from NASA in 1994 and immediately continued his work on impact cratering and returned to active research on terrestrial impact structures, first as a visiting professor at the University of Vienna (1994; returning in 1997 and 2001) and later as a research collaborator in the Smithsonian Institution Departments of Mineral Sciences (1994-2004) and Paleobiology (2004-2022). He and Mary Hill were strong supporters of students interested in impact geology whether through hands-on tutorials at their home or research grants at Brown University and Carnegie Institution, DC. In recognition of his contributions to planetary science and impact cratering, Bevan was awarded the Barringer Medal from the Meteoritical Society in 2002.
Beyond science, Bevan enjoyed many things including classical music, reading (mystery and humor being high on his lists of favorites). Lately he spent a lot of his time organizing his books and reprints as well as his large sample collection, housed in the basement of his home in Chevy Chase, MD, and he was even just now working on more Sudbury research. We have lost a giant in the field of impact cratering research, and a wonderful person and gentleman.
Bevan M. French (March 8, 1937 - May 10, 2025)
Submitted by: Steven Jaret, Peter Schultz, and Christian Koeberl