Ira Shimmin Allison (16 March 1895 – 31 May 1990), was an American

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

best known for studying the US state of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

's prehistoric lakes and waterways. He is the namesake for

Lake Allison Lake Allison was a temporary lake in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, formed periodically by the Missoula Floods from 15,000 to 13,000 BC. The lake is the main cause of the rich and fertile soil that now characterizes the Willamette Valley. Histor ...

, named because Allison became the first person to identify and correlate Willamette silt soil in 1953 with soils at the former lake bed of

Lake Lewis Lake Lewis was a temporary lake in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, largely formed by the Missoula Floods in about the 14th millennium B.C. Lake Lewis was formed when the restricted flow of waters from periodic cataclysmic floods f ...

in eastern

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

Personal life

Ira Allison was born on March 16, 1895, in

Gardner, Illinois Gardner is a village in Grundy County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,463 at the 2010 census. History Gardner is named for its founder, Henry C. Gardner. Geography Gardner is located at (41.187881, -88.309524). According to the ...

to John and Eva (né Shimmin) Allison, the fourth of seven siblings. His mother died when he was 13, and his father remarried to Margaret Elizabeth Phillips, with whom he had three more children. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, from 1917 until 1919 Allison served as a

Sergeant Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...

for the United States Army Medical Department. In 1921 he married his lifelong partner, Sadie Gilchrist in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California. In 1928 he moved to Corvallis, Oregon, where he resided until his death. He died at his home in

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...

at the age of 95 of natural causes. He was buried in his home state of

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Academia

Allison's started working at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1920 as an assistant professor, teaching until 1928 and receiving a doctorate in Geology in 1924/5. In addition, he worked 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 ...

as an instructor in 1922 and 1923. Allison worked at the

Oregon State College Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

from 1928 through 1965, and served as the chair of the Geology Department from 1950 until 1960. During this time he authored several different papers about the geological history of Oregon. In 1939, he performed a survey of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

lakes in south-central Oregon with three students from OSC. Some of his other references to the prehistoric lakes of Oregon include a 1945 article published in

Geological Society of America Bulletin The ''Geological Society of America Bulletin'' (until 1960 called ''The Bulletin of the Geological Society of America'' and also commonly referred to as ''GSA Bulletin'') is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that has been published by the Geolo ...

. about Summer Lake, and a later correction to that paper in 1966 published in the same journal. He participated as part of the leadership of the 8th annual biology colloquium. After his retirement from OSC, he co-authored the 7th edition of

McGraw Hill Education McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

's ''Geology: The Science of a Changing Earth'' with David F. Palmer, published in 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allison, Ira S. 20th-century American geologists Oregon State University faculty 1895 births 1990 deaths