Frances Lawrence Parker
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Frances Lawrence Parker (28 March 1906 – 2002) was an American geologist and micropaleontologist. She is credited for writing, co-writing, and publishing many academic books and articles with a focus of paleoceanography and micropaleontology. She has been recognized for her extensive contributions to the modern-day knowledge of benthic and planktonic foraminifera.
Background
[edit]Early Life
[edit]Frances Lawrence Parker was born on March 28, 1906, in Brookline, Massachusetts. The youngest child of Philip Stanley Parker and Eleanor Payson Parker, she had two sisters and a brother.
Education
[edit]Parker attended Vassar College, earning a bachelor's degree in geology with a minor in chemistry in 1928. Unlike other institutions at the time, Vassar promoted quality science courses for women.[1] Throughout her studies, she attended geographical trips to Wyoming focusing on glacial geology, accompanied by geologist Thomas McDougall Hills.[2]
In 1930, Parker earned her master's degree in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Career
[edit]Early Career
[edit]After completing her master's degree, Parker became the research assistant for micropalentologist Joseph Cushman at the Cushman laboratory in Sharon, Massachusetts. Cushman and Parker studied foraminifera with funding from the U.S. Geological Survey. While studying foraminifera, Parker took and passed the U.S. Geological Survey exam, allowing her to become an assistant paleontologist.
In the 1930s, Cushman and Parker traveled to central Europe to study specimens and to visit scientists, museums, and laboratories engaged in micropaleontology study. The palaeontologists published sixteen papers with the research gathered between 1930 and 1940. During the summers of 1936-1940, Parker also spent time researching for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution alongside Fred B. Phleger.
Career Shift
[edit]In 1940, Parker briefly stepped back from her work in science and worked as academic secretary at Foxcroft School, an exclusive girls’ school in Virginia.
In 1943, she was offered an opportunity to return to a research position with the Shell Oil Company in Houston, expanding her foraminifera taxonomy work into the petroleum industry. She held a senior paleontologist with the company from 1943-1945.
Parker returned to working with Fred B. Phleger, then faculty at Amherst College, in 1947. She conducted summer research in his WHOI-funded laboratory.[3] Together, they studied the taxonomy of Atlantic foraminifera.
Later Career
[edit]Parker and Phleger continued to work together during the 1950s, moving their research to La Jolla, California. After founding the Marina Foraminifera Laboratory at SIO, Parker worked first as an associate in marine geology, then as a junior research geologist, and, finally, as an assistant research geologist.
After a brief break from SIO, Parker returned and was promoted to associate research geologist in 1960. She worked as a research paleontologist from 1967 until her retirement in 1973. Although retired, Parker continued to work as a research associate.[3]
After retiring from working with Phleger, Parker became a researcher at Scripps Research. She studied a variety of subjects, including geology, ecology, biogeography, and taxonomy. While at the Scripps laboratory, Parker wrote and published over thirty articles both independently and in collaboration with colleagues.
Works and contributions
[edit]Papers on Planktonic Foraminifera
[edit]Parker explored and published papers on many topics, such as taxonomy, ecology, biogeography, stratigraphy, and preservation, over the course of her long career. Her most cited paper is "Planktonic foraminiferal species in Pacific sediments” published in 1962. This paper changed the way planktonic foraminifers are identified in the modern age. A 1973 follow-up study titled, “Late Cenozoic biostratigraphy (planktonic foraminifera) of tropical Atlantic deep-sea sections”, has also been cited numerous times.[2] Her works led her to become the editor for special publications at the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research.[3]
Marine Foraminifera Laboratory
[edit]Parker's contributions to the field also led to her founding the Marine Foraminifera Laboratory at Scripps with Fred B. Phleger in 1950. The laboratory was funded first by the American Petroleum Institute, and later by the Office of Naval Research and National Science Foundation.[2]
Berger-Parker index
[edit]The Berger–Parker index is named after Parker and Wolfgang H. Berger.[4]
Awards
[edit]Parker's work is "becoming part of the foundations of modern paleooceanography".[3] Parker has been recognized as an influential researcher, earning the Cushman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Foraminiferal Research in 1981.[5]
Published books
[edit]- Ecology of Foraminifera from San Antonio Bay and Environs, Southwest Texas[6]
- “he Clinch River Study: An Investigation of the Fate of Radionuclides [7]
References
[edit]- ^ Day, D. C. (June 2000). "Frances Lawrence Parker - Research Geologist, SIO, UCSD" (PDF). SIO Centennial Oral History Project: 3–36 – via Centennial Oral History Project.
- ^ a b c Parker, Frances L.; Berger, Wolfgang H. (January 1971). "Faunal and solution patterns of planktonic Foraminifera in surface sediments of the South Pacific". Deep Sea Research and Oceanographic Abstracts. 18 (1): 73–107. Bibcode:1971DSRA...18...73P. doi:10.1016/0011-7471(71)90017-9 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
- ^ a b c d Berger, Wolfgang H. (December 2002). "Frances Lawrence Parker (1906–2002), micropaleontologist and pioneer of paleoceanography". Comptes Rendus Palevol. 1 (6): 471–477. Bibcode:2002CRPal...1..471B. doi:10.1016/S1631-0683(02)00072-6 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
- ^ Magurran, Anne E. (2013). Ecological Diversity and Its Measurement. Springer Netherlands. p. 41. ISBN 9789401573580.
- ^ Edith, V. (1 April 1981). "The 1981 Joseph A. Cushman award; Frances L. Parker". Journal of Foraminiferal Research. 12 (2): 93–95. doi:10.2113/gsjfr.12.2.93 – via GeoWorldScience.
- ^ Parker, F. L.; PHLEGER, F. B.; PEIRSON, J. F (1953). ECOLOGY OF FORAMINIFERA FROM SAN ANTONIO BAY AND ENVIRONS, SOUTHWEST TEXAS. WASHINGTON, D. C., U. S. A: CUSHMAN FOUNDATION FOR FORAMINIFERAL RESEARCH. pp. 1–80.
- ^ Pickering, R. J.; Carrigan, P. H.; Parker, F. L.; Geological Survey (U.S.) (1965). "The Clinch River study--An investigation of the fate of radionuclides released to a surface stream". The Clinch River Study: An Investigation of the Fate of Radionuclides Released to a Surface Stream. Circular. Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior: U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey. pp. 1–17. doi:10.3133/cir497.
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