Magmas and their sources: A special issue honoring Frederick A. Frey

This special issue is dedicated to Frederick A. Frey rare-earth elements, more amenable to routine analy(Fig. 1), a pioneer in the use of trace element geochemistry (especially the rare-earth elements, REE) to interpret the origin and evolution of basalts and andesites, peridotites, granites, meteorites, tektites and even sediments. Fred’s remarkable career spans more than 5 decades starting in 1964 with his seminal paper with advisor Larry Haskin entitled ‘‘rare earths in oceanic basalts” (Frey and Haskin, 1964). Given that Fred was an Associate Editor of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (GCA) for 20 years, GCA is a highly appropriate venue for this collection of twenty-seven new scientific papers in his honor. Fred’s undergraduate training was in chemical engineering. After a year in industry, he decided to seek an advance degree. He was undecided on whether to get a Harvard MBA or Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The coin he flipped landed on heads and we have all benefitted greatly from that lucky toss (Haskin and Frey, 1987). It was fortuitous for us that Fred met Larry Haskin, his thesis supervisor, who introduced him to Radiochemical Neutron Activation Analysis (RNAA), and got him started on determining REE abundances in mafic and ultramafic rocks. When Fred started on this journey in 1961, virtually nothing was known about REE abundances in these rocks. The RNAA method was a tedious and painstaking procedure. This early analytical training undoubtedly honed Fred’s uncompromising insistence on the importance of the highest quality geochemical data. After moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1966 as an assistant professor, Fred, along with others, utilized newly available high resolution Ge(Li) detectors to introduce Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) to the geochemical community. This new method made the previously tricky determination of the apparently not so-