This month’s #geolends showcases Zelma Maine Jackson, an American geologist and pioneering woman of color in geoscience.
Photo from https://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/post/daughters-hanford-black-woman-geologist-digs-hanford-soil
Zelma’s early life and preference towards science was influenced by her grandmother, who she lived with on the Gullah-Geechee Nation in South Carolina until the age of 7. Maine-Jackson moved overseas with her parents who lived on the US Army’s base in Heilbronn Germany. In her German schools, Zelma gained even more exposure to advanced math and science. Ms. Jackson then went on to study at Virginia State University with Dr Mack Gipson for her BS in Geology and then earned her MS degree in geology from the University of Washington in 1980
In the 1970’s several major oil companies and the American Geologic Society joined forces to promote more women and people of color in the field. Zelma was a part of this program and spent summers working in oil fields or uranium exploration sites. She worked as a well site geo overseeing coring operations for ARCO in the southwestern Rockies, and eventually in the Hanford site in Washington State. She then got a job at the Hanford site for the Washington Department of Ecology Nuclear Waste Program where she worked for over twenty years.
None of this was easy, as Zelma faced racial and gender discrimination throughout her career and still flourished. As Jackson was once quoted “[m]y view was always that people would get with it, or they could get out of my way”. Zelma stepped back from geology for almost a decade to focus on community involvement, helping with a women's shelter, the United Way, and other community action projects. She then jumped back into overseeing the cleanup of the Hanford Site, monitoring test wells to better understand the flow of contaminants into the groundwater; a path she would follow for the next 25 years.
Now retired, she is still dedicated to helping young people of diverse backgrounds advance their career paths, and also to ecology and advocacy in Washington State.
Thank you for being an inspiration Zelma Maine Jackson!
Read more about Zelma Maine Jackson and diversity in geosciences in the links below:
