Ada Swineford (July 12, 1917 – July 31, 1993) was a clay mineralogist and Professor of

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

Western Washington State College Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...

in Bellingham. Swinefordite is named after her.

Life

Swineford was born in Chicago on 17 June 1917. Her parents were Charles and Kate (born Watson) Swineford and she was unusual in deciding to choose geology when few women were involved. Her father was a professor of engineering at the Chicago Institute of Technology. She obtained her own science degree in 1940 and a master's degree in 1942 at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. The same year she joined the geological Survey of Kansas. By 1949 she led the petrology department. In 1954 she was awarded a doctorate by Pennsylvania State University and in 1958 she began teaching at the University of Kansas and in 1964 she was an associate professor. In 1961 she and Paul C. Franks published the proceedings of the "Clay and Clay Materials" conference which was help in Austin Texas. She moved to

in Bellingham where she became a full professor in 1969. She nominally retired in the 1970s but also took up positions at other universities. Swineford was a mineralogist and more particularly a Kansas geologist. She and

John Frye John Frye (1933–2005) was a association football, footballer who played as an inside forward in the Scottish Football League for Hibernian F.C., Hibernian, St Mirren F.C., St Mirren, Queen of the South F.C., Queen of the South, Hamilton Acad ...

studied

loess Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits. Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...

. She was involved in the controversy that argued over the nature of loesse formation. She and Frye looked at the particle size of loesse and compared it with local dust. They found a high degree of similarity and this strengthened the evidence of Russell's theory that they had been formed from dust. The mineral Swinefordite is named after her. The clay is said to have the consistency of Vaseline and is found in a mine in North Carolina. The clay is rich in lithium and was discovered by one of her students.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swineford, Ada 1917 births 1993 deaths American women geologists American geologists 20th-century American women scientists