Heinz Adolf Lowenstam (October 9, 1912 – June 7, 1993) was a German-born, Jewish-American paleoecologist celebrated for his discoveries in biomineralization: that living organisms manufacture substances such as the iron-containing mineral magnetite within their bodies.

[2] After spending 18 months studying the geology of the Eastern Nazareth Mountains, he returned to Germany in 1936 to learn that a new law was passed one week prior to his thesis defense prohibited the awarding of doctorates to Jews.

[2] Lowenstam was aware that the structure of the buried reef complex was an ideal trap for oil and gas; but, instead of exploiting his discovery for financial gain, he published his findings in the open scientific literature where all could reap the benefits.

While working as a geologist in Illinois State Geological Survey's Coal, and Stratigraphy and Paleontology Divisions, Lowenstam was invited to join Harold Urey's group to aid in acquiring fossil materials.

This position allowed Lowenstam to "continue his research on Silurian reefs, as well as to extend his search for pristine fossil shell materials, an interest that later paved the way for his studies on biomineralization".

[2] In the early 1950s, Caltech and the University of California began the building of their isotope geochemistry programs and their recruitment of young scientists from Urey's group and the geochemists of the Chicago "mafia" to form the core of their departments.

By the time Lowenstam accepted his faculty position at Caltech in 1954, many of his colleagues including Harrison Brown, Sam Epstein, Clair Patterson, and even Harold Urey had already made the migration.

Under his chosen title as a "paleoecologist" Lowenstam continued to collaborate with his former research group (Brown, Patterson, and Epstein were all at Caltech), but he also used the opportunity to explore more comprehensive geochemical analyses of fossil formation.

Lowenstam sought to develop geochemical methods to gain insight into the biological processes through which organisms control mineralization as well as derive information about ancient ecosystems, such as salinity and barometric pressure.

[2] But it was Lowenstam's 1961 discovery of "biochemically-precipitated magnetite (Fe3O4) as a capping material in the radula (tongue plate) teeth of chitons (marine mollusks)" that was to shape the future of biomineralization.