Arie Poldervaart (6 July 1918 in Bandung, Indonesia – 28 October 1964 in Manhattan) was a Dutch petrologist and leading expert on igneous and metamorphic rocks.
After teaching science at Rondebosch's Diocesan College, he left South Africa in December 1944 to go to Australia and join the Netherlands East Indies Forces.
[1] Shortly after moving to the United States in 1951, he became interested in metabasaltic rocks as a means of interpreting the polymetamorphic history of the Blue Ridge Province, North Carolina.
The following year he initiated an ambitious and far-reaching program of research in the metamorphic terrain of the Beartooth Mountains in southern Montana and northern Wyoming.
[2] Considered a leading authority on the origin of rocks, Dr. Poldevaart did field research in Europe, Africa, the East Indies, Australia, and many parts of North.
[11] When he died of a heart ailment, Poldervaart had partially completed a comprehensive textbook on igneous and metamorphic petrology involving basalts.