Raymond Siever

Raymond Siever was born in Chicago and earned his B.S. (1943), M.S. (1947), and Ph. D. (1950) degrees at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Francis Pettijohn. Siever joined the ISGS in 1943 and, after taking leave for service in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1944 to 1947, returned to the Survey during 1947 to 1957. His research interests included coal petrology, subsurface geology, sedimentary petrology, and sedimentology; his special focus was late Paleozoic sandstones. He mapped the subsurface geology of Richland County with Gilbert H. Cady and authored (with Paul E. Potter and Herbert D. Glass) groundbreaking papers on Chesterian and Pennsylvanian sedimentology. Siever's article on the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian unconformity in the Illinois Basin, published in the AAPG Bulletin, won the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' President's Award for best paper by a young geologist in 1951.

Thomas expanded his investigations to include the surface areas of New Albany Shale. His studies also included investigations of colloidal-size silica produced by southern Illinois tripoli (microcrystalline quartz), the thermal conductivity of carbonate rocks, and a method of determining fluoride in coal and clay. He was regarded as “a very versatile chemist.” His work was not only published by the Survey, but also by the American Chemical Society, Clays and Clay Minerals, and Analytical Chemistry. He was listed in American Men of Science in 1970, Who's Who in the Midwest in 1974, and Who's Who in Technology Today in 1982. He was a member of the Illinois Academy of Science.

On a personal note, Siever loved music and was a skillful pianist. He had a wife, Doris, and two sons.

Honored by Thomas C. Buschbach and Janis Treworgy.

Citation contributed by W. John Nelson.