Maria Klenova facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Maria Klenova
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| Мари́я Васи́льевна Клёнова | |
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| Born | 12 August 1898 |
| Died | 6 August 1976 (aged 77) |
| Nationality | Russian Soviet |
| Known for | Seabed mapping |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Marine Geology |
| Institutions | Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, USSR Academy of Sciences |
| Doctoral advisor | Vladimir Vernadsky |
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A founder of Russian marine science and the first to fully map the seabed of the Barents Sea.
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Maria Vasilyevna Klenova (Russian: Мари́я Васи́льевна Клёнова; August 12, 1898 – August 6, 1976) was a pioneering Russian and Soviet scientist. She was a marine geologist, which means she studied the ocean floor. Maria Klenova helped start marine science in Russia. She also contributed to the first atlas of Antarctica.
She became a professor and worked with the USSR Academy of Sciences, focusing on Antarctic research. Maria spent almost 30 years exploring the Arctic and Antarctic regions. She was the first woman scientist to conduct research in Antarctica! She joined the First Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1955–1957). She also worked with ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) at Macquarie Island.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Maria Vasilyevna Klenova was born in Irkutsk, Russia, in 1898. She went to school in Yekaterinburg. During World War I, she moved to Moscow to work in a hospital. At the same time, she began studying medicine.
She traveled to Siberia to continue her medical studies during the Russian Civil War. In the early 1920s, Klenova returned to Moscow. There, she decided to study mineralogy, which is the study of minerals. She graduated from Moscow State University in 1924. She then worked on her doctoral degree with her supervisors, Yakov Samoilov and Vladimir Vernadsky.
A Career Exploring the Oceans
Maria Klenova began her career in marine geology in 1925. She worked as a researcher aboard the Soviet research vessel Perseus. This ship was part of the Floating Marine Research Institute. This institute is now known as the Nikolai M. Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography.
She explored the Barents Sea and the archipelagos of Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen, and Franz Josef Land. In 1933, Klenova created the first complete map of the seabed of the Barents Sea. She even named a deep area, the Barents abyssal plain, after the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz.
In 1949, Klenova became a senior research associate. She worked at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Her work involved studying the geology of the seabed in many places. These included the Atlantic Ocean, the Antarctic, the Caspian Sea, the Barents Sea, and the White Sea.
In the summer of 1956, she traveled with a Soviet oceanographic team. Their goal was to map unknown areas of the Antarctic coast.
Important Contributions to Science
Maria Klenova's work helped create the first Antarctic atlas. This was a very important four-volume book published in the Soviet Union. Klenova spent most of her time making observations from Russian icebreakers named Ob and Lena. Her team measured the ocean in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters.
There were seven other women on board the Ob with Klenova. At that time, women were rarely allowed to go onto land. They had to rely on their male colleagues to collect data samples. Between her two voyages, she worked at Mirny. This was a Russian base on the Queen Mary Coast in Antarctica.
On her way home, Klenova visited Macquarie Island. She became the first female scientist ever to go ashore there.
Her book, Geologiya Moray (Geology of the Sea), was published in 1948. It was only the second textbook ever written about marine geology.
Honors and Legacy
Several places are named in honor of Maria Klenova:
- The Klenova Valley (84°36′N 55°00′W / 84.600°N 55.000°W) is an oceanographic valley. It was discovered between 1981 and 1983 by the USSR Northern Fleet Hydrographic Expedition.
- The Klenova Seamount is an underwater mountain. It is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of Salvador, Brazil.
- A crater on Venus is named Klenova crater.
- Klenova Peak in Antarctica is also named after her.
See also
In Spanish: María Kliónova para niños
