Ruth Schmidt

Ruth Ann Marie Schmidt (1916 – March 29, 2014) was an American geologist and paleontologist. She spent most of her career in Alaska, where she established a United States Geological Survey field office and became a professor of geology at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Early life and education

Schmidt was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1916. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1936 from New York University, and trained as an x-ray technician after graduating. She attended Columbia University, where she received her master's and doctorate degrees in geology in 1939 and 1948 respectively.

Career

She began working for the United States Geological Survey in Washington, D.C., in 1943, and postponed her studies in the final years of the Second World War to join the Military Geology Unit that identified areas where foxholes could be dug and observation towers built. She resumed her studies when the war ended but continued working for the U.S. Geological Survey, where she was involved in the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch, the Mineral Classification Branch, the Organized Lexicon Project, and the Paleotectonic Map Project. During the McCarthy era, Schmidt was a member of the communist-leaning Washington Bookshop and was the focus of two hearings in 1950 and 1954 that questioned her loyalty to the American government; the charges against her were ultimately cleared.

In 1956, Schmidt was transferred to Alaska to establish a field office for the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, where she was the district geologist until 1963. In 1958, she co-founded the Alaska Geological Society, and in 1959, she began teaching geology classes at Anchorage Community College, which was incorporated into the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1962. She was the first female geology professor at the university and chaired the geology department. In 1964, she and four other scientists were in the middle of the frozen-over Portage Lake boring holes in the ice when the Great Alaskan earthquake struck. After being rescued by helicopter, she was chosen to lead the Engineering & Geological Evaluation Group, a group of 50 volunteer scientists, to assess the areas of damage in Anchorage prior to the start of rebuilding. She oversaw the construction of a geology laboratory at the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1970. In 1974–1975, she was an environmental consultant to the Governor of Alaska on the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

Death and legacy

Schmidt retired from teaching in 1984 after 25 years and continued consulting as a geologist until 2000. She suffered from dementia in her later life, and died at the age of 97 on March 29, 2014. She was posthumously inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.