Gene & Carolyn Shoemaker

For a review of the outstanding life of Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker, see the book by David Levy, (here). For the Shoemaker publications, see (here).

Dr. Shoemaker worked his entire career for the U.S. Geological Survey, and on loan to NASA for almost 50 years on projects mapping the geology of western U.S. and on uranium exploration during the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s, Dr. Shoemaker worked on the impact mechanics at Meteor Crater, Arizona for his Ph.D. dissertation. Afterward, he lectured throughout the U.S. on his findings to skeptical geologists in universities and industry. Over the years, he convinced the world that many of those sites once considered explosive (and collapsed) volcanic structures were in fact impact craters.

He then turned his attention to the Moon and mapped geologic structures in preparation for the U.S. space program to explore the Moon. He also studied and reported on the returned lunar samples. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he focused on asteroids and comets relating to mass extinctions. In the 1990s he began publishing and reporting on asteroids and comets with his wife, Carolyn S. Shoemaker, particularly on the famous impacts on Jupiter and in Australia and other topics until his death in the later 1990s resulting from a car accident north of Alice Springs, Australia, while on a field trip with his wife to investigate a new impact crater, of course. Carolyn died in 2021 (more).

Dr. Shoemaker’s efforts since the late 1940s to his death amounted to some 197 publications and 201 abstracts of presentations, were major contributions to the geosciences and are the basis for Dr. Shoemaker being considered the Father of Astrogeology.

Dr. Ted H. Foss, P.G.*, Conference Session Chairman and Mr. Michael D. Campbell, P.G., P.H., Chairman, Conference Environmental and Mining Sessions, Making Presentation of Award to Ms. Carolyn Shoemaker, U.S.G.S. at AIPG Annual Conference, 1997, Houston, Texas.

* Note: Dr. Foss served as NASA Science Director and provided geological training to the original group of astronauts in the mid-to-late 1960s, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey. Dr. Foss pass away in 2003 (more).