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Eleanora Iberall Robbins
Eleanora ‘Norrie’ Robbins (born Eleanora Roberta Iberall, July 20, 1942) is an American economic biogeologist, geomicrobiologist, and children’s outdoor science educator.

Personal Life and Education
Robbins was born in Washington, DC where her father, Arthur S. Iberall was a physicist/hydrodynamicist working for the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) and her mother, Helene Rubenstein Iberall was raising four daughters, Norrie Robbins, Penni Rubin, Thea Iberall, and Val O’Connor. The family moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1952, where Robbins graduated from Cleveland Heights High School.

Her college education includes Ohio State University (BS 1964, geology), University of Arizona (MS 1972, geology/palynology), and Pennsylvania State University (PhD 1982, geosciences/palynology).

She was married for 50 years to C. Brian Robbins, a zoologist who worked on African mammals for the Smithsonian.

Contributions
Robbins was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer (1964-1966) assigned to the Geological Survey of Tanganyika (GST) (later Tanzania) in Dodoma where she worked on prospecting for mineral deposits. She was the first female geologist with GST. For her vacation in 1965, she mapped new boundaries for the Olorgesailie Prehistoric Site in Kenya under the direction of Louis Leakey and Glynn Isaac.

Following Peace Corps service, she joined the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in Washington, DC, Denver, CO, and Reston, VA (1967-2001). Depending on the presidential administration, she worked on exploration for light minerals (titanium for the supersonic transport and rare earth deposits including the Mountain Pass mine, California that is the only operating rare earth mine in the United States), petroleum exploration on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf,  petroleum/coal/mineral deposits in the eastern U.S. Triassic Newark Rift System, peat deposits in former and present-day Great Lakes wetlands, and coal- and metal-mine acid mine drainage remediation. This applied research is reflected in most of her publications, as well as a patent with Motoaki Sato on ozonating acid mine drainage to remove iron and recover metals such as manganese. The brown manganese oxide minerals stain toilet bowls and sinks of people living near many coal mines in Appalachia, so removal technology is crucial.

Palynology was the tool Robbins used to analyze a variety of economic deposits. She popularized a rock processing technique of petroleum palynologists, using the standard acids but avoiding the centrifugation step that destroyed delicate organic structures including fecal pellets. Using this allowed her and her colleagues to extend the history of animals by finding fecal pellets that resemble those of zooplankton in the Early Proterozoic. In a collection of ore deposit research papers, she included the organic components of gold and uranium deposits to assess the paleoecology involved in mineral precipitation. Gold at Jerritt Canyon was found to be microscopic, bound by carbonized proto-graphite, and not in the uncarbonized organic tissues. Study of the microscopic minerals led her into microbiology.

Robbins also did research on ancient iron deposits and origin of life using palynological processing. Thus arose the controversy--are bacterioform minerals fossils of bacteria? She showed the presence of microbial-type iron oxide microstructures in the Isua Iron Formation, which is the earliest sedimentary rock sequence on Earth. She also displayed hollow iron oxide minerals that resemble iron-bacteria-type sheaths in Precambrian Iron Formation. This direction led her to study modern analogs, as well as suggest in a paper written with her father, that hollow iron oxide rods might be a potential search image for past life in samples eventually returned from Mars.

One modern analog for Precambrian Iron Formation, as defined by G.C. Amstutz, is the iron embayments of Santorini, Greece. Robbins wanted monthly samples for a year from Santorini to show annual variability in an actual environment rather than a Precambrian reconstruction. To do this, she made contact with MD/physiologist Chrysoula Kourtidou-Papadeli from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Dr. Kourtidou-Papadeli located the science teacher in Fira, Santorini, Gerasima Damigas, who encouraged five of her teen-age students to participate in this experiment. Transported by boat, they collected monthly samples for almost a year and a half, and were featured in National Geographic/Greek Edition. They also were presented awards by American, Russian, and Japanese astronauts at the International Academy of Astronautics 13th “Humans in Space Symposium” in Santorini in 2000. There, Robbins received the “Times Eneken” Award from the Greek Aerospace Medical Association and Space Research, and the International Academy of Astronautics for participation in “the pioneer scientific experiment in Santorini, Greece” (2000). The samples along with temperature and wind data showed that the microbial populations in the Santorini embayments shifted in response to these external processes, thereby potentially explaining some of the variability found in Precambrian Iron Formation rocks.

Peripheral to work assignments but including actual research , Robbins joined a group of scientists who successfully applied their individual technical expertise to block a four-lane highway from crossing Huntley Meadows wetland in Virginia. She also participated by identifying iron bacteria in the first Bioblitz, which took place in 1996 at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC.

Outdoor Science Education
Outdoor science education resulted because her sister Penni Rubin, an Early Childhood educator, taught “You scientists have so much fun, kids don’t know this.” . A visit from Robbins’s mom in 1989 led to an excursion to their early childhood neighborhood, the Anacostia region of Washington, DC which had become a Black ghetto. Robbins said she especially wanted to visit Oxon Run, the creek across the street where she first saw iron bacteria. Seeing kids playing in the creek, just like she had done, led her mom to say why don’t you do something with these kids? Queried about the safety of taking local kids into the creek, the Police Department outreach person said, “Please do this, these children have nothing.” So-named by her mother-in-law, high school teacher Virginia Williams Robbins, Robbins started “What’s Under Your Feet?” which became a five-weekend-long summer activity for kids living in her old neighborhood (1989-1998). The principal and teachers at McGogney Elementary School there made it work. For this, Robbins was awarded one of the Thousand Points of Light by the George H.W. Bush administration.

The Point of Light award led the Chief of the USGS Energy Office, Gary Hill and Bonnie McGregor Stubblefield (later Assistant Director of the USGS) to decide to create a publication for children. They hired Robbins’ sister Penni Rubin, and together, Rubin and Robbins created “What’s Under Your Feet?,” an activity book specifically written for children in 1992.

There were more interactions with science teachers in the Washington, DC area. Robbins and teacher Sue Pfeifer ran a contest for her middle school science students in Herndon, VA. Robbins needed some field assistance in a local wetland, so they had the students write essays how this free government job would help with their future careers. . For this, Robbins was awarded the 1993 Secretary of the Department of the Interior Stewardship Award for Education. Another outdoor program was with one of the best science teachers, Hilda Taylor who died along with her two students in the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

As adjunct activities to her Great Lakes Wetland project under the Bush I Administration, Robbins led one-day outdoor science programs for Shawnee Indian kids in Ohio, Ojibway kids and adults from the Bad River reservation in Wisconsin, and Chippewa teenagers in Michigan. As adjunct activities to her Acid Mine Drainage projects in the Appalachia region, she helped lead one-day programs for coal-miner’s children (1995-1999) in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Research into acid mine drainage from coal mines in Appalachia under the Clinton-Gore Administration also led her more interactions with Indian people. Robbins was concerned about the red, acidified streams she was studying, learning about the bacteria which produce the red iron flocculates and the acid. She asked, “What kind of people are we Americans who would allow this to happen? What is wrong with Western Science?” And she asked, “Who teaches their kids to protect the Earth? Native Americans do.” So she went looking in her Federal agency for Indian scientists to guide her. Thus, she participated the Inter-Tribal Youth Practicum in Alaska accompanied by USGS Athabaskan coal petrologist, Sharon Crowley. She also ran programs for Chickahominy Indian kids in Virginia and Piscattaway kids in Maryland.

Robbins specifically wanted to teach Indian kids for her retirement in San Diego, California so she could be taught by Elders. As an adjunct faculty member of the geology department at San Diego State University (SDSU) (2001-2015), she started interacting with the program funded by National Science Foundation to professor Eric Riggs called “The Indigenous Earth Science Project,” in which he was teaching geology to reservation environmental office personnel. A meeting with Henry Rodriguez at the La Jolla Reservation led to the ongoing activity called “Science Explorers Club." She has run this activity on 11 reservations in San Diego County (2001-2023), taking Kumeyaay, Luiseño, Cupeño, and Cahuilla Indian kids out monthly on their land to get wet and dirty and begin to interact with Western-trained scientists. This led to her Environmental Hero Award in 2013 from the La Jolla and Pauma Reservations.

Throughout this time retired San Diego, Robbins continued to do research on local environments. She also mentored geology students annually, using students as field assistants and also helping to meet the goals of the SDSU Associated Student organization.

Books
Robbins, E.I., Zhou Zili, and Zou Zhicheng (1991). “Organic tissues in Tertiary lacustrine and palustrine rocks from the Jiyang and Pingyi rift depressions, Shandong Province, eastern China”. In P. Anadon, Cabrera, L., and Kelts, K. (eds.). Lacustrine Facies Analysis, Special Publication 13, International Association of Sedimentologists, Blackwell Scientific Publications, pp. 291-311. doi:10.1002/9781444303919.ch15 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444303919.ch15

Robbins, E.I., J.W. LaBaugh, D.A. Merk, R.S. Parkhurst, L.J. Puckett, D.O. Rosenberry, P.F. Schuster, P.A. and Shelito, (1997). “Bacterial indicators of ground-water discharge: Iron seeps in the Shingobee River and Crow Wing watersheds, Northern Minnesota”. In Winter, TC (ed.). Hydrological and Biogeochemical Research in the Shingobee River Headwaters Area, north-central Minnesota, U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 96-4215, pp. 177-185. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/wri964215) doi:10.3133/wri964215

Robbins, E.I., and Michalann Harthill (2003). “Life in a copper province”. In Skinner, H.C.W.; Berger, A.R. (eds.). Geology and Health: Closing the Gap, Oxford University Press, pp. 105-112.ISBN 0-19-516204-8 doi:10.1093/oso/9780195162042.003.0024 (https://academic.oup.com/book/40870/chapter-abstract/348916973?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false)

Journals
Ebert, LB; Robbins, EI; Rose, KD; Kastrup, RV; Scanlon, JC; Gebhard, LA; Garcia, AR (1990). “Chemistry and palynology of carbon seams and associated rocks from the Witwatersrand goldfields, South Africa” Ore Geology Reviews. 5: 423-444. doi:10.1016/0169-1368(90)90045-o (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016913689090045O?via%3Dihub)

Foster, CB; Robbins, EI; Bone, Y (1990). “Organic tissues, graphite, and hydrocarbons in host rocks of the Rum Jungle Uranium Field, northern Australia” Ore Geology Reviews. 5: 509-523. doi:10.1016/0169-1368(90)90050-W (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016913689090050W?via%3Dihub)

Robbins, EI; Cravotta, CA III; Savela, CE; Nord, GL Jr (1999). “Hydrobiogeochemical interactions in "anoxic" limestone drains for neutralization of acidic mine drainage” Fuel. 78: 259-270. doi:10.1016/s0016-2361(98)00147-1 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016236198001471?via%3Dihub)

Jiang, DeXin; Robbins, EI (2000). “Quaternary palynofloras and paleoclimate of the Qaidam basin, Qinghai Province, Northwestern China” Palynology. 24: 95-112. doi:10.2113/0240095 https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/palynology/article-abstract/24/1/95/110469/QUATERNARY-PALYNOFLORAS-AND-PALEOCLIMATE-OF-THE?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Robbins, EI (2000). “Bacteria and Archaea in acidic environments and a key to morphological identification” Hydrobiologia. 433: 61-89. doi:10.1023/a:1004062519263 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1004062519263

Gross, Sabine; Robbins, EI (2000). “Acidophilic and acid-tolerant fungi and yeasts” Hydrobiologia. 433: 91-109. doi:10.1023/a:1004014603333 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1004014603333

Robbins, EI; Corley, TL (2005). “Microdynamics and seasonal changes in manganese oxide epiprecipitations in Pinal Creek, Arizona” Hydrobiologia. 534: 165-180. doi:10.1007/s10750-004-1503-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-004-1503-0

Jiang, D-X; Wang, Y-D; Robbins, EI; Wei, J; Tian, N (2008). “Mesozoic non-marine petroleum source rocks determined by palynomorphs in the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, northwestern China” Geol. Mag. 145 (6): 868-885. doi:10.1017/s0016756808005384 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/mesozoic-nonmarine-petroleum-source-rocks-determined-by-palynomorphs-in-the-tarim-basin-xinjiang-northwestern-china/328153FDCE003ADC14105D0C5CAA45F9)

Robbins, EI; Stanton, MR; Young, CD (2023). “Geochemistry and microbiology of Atacamite-Paratacamite Biofilms Floating on Underground Brine and Petroleum Pools in the White Pine Copper Mine, Michigan” Minerals (MDPI). 3 (3). doi:10.3390/micro3030051 (https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8023/3/3/51)