Carol S. Breed-McCauley died peacefully at home in Flagstaff, AZ, on Thursday, June 16, 2022, at the age of 89.
Carol was born on April 21, 1933, to James W. and Ruth Cook Neilson, in New York City, and was adopted later by Eugene Sameth. She spent her childhood in New York and Florida, and attended Emma Willard School.
Carol graduated from Smith College (BA ’54, Geology) and Brown University (MS ’57, Geology). She married Edwin A Carter of Springfield, MA in 1954 and had four daughters. After their divorce in 1963, Carol moved with her daughters to Flagstaff, AZ, where she interned at the Museum of Northern Arizona. There, she met and married William (Bill) J. Breed, Curator of Geology. With Bill, Carol had a fifth daughter. The couple became a significant part of Northern Arizona’s scientific community.
Carol’s family, career and civic life were full of discovery, travel, and community leadership. While raising five daughters, she served the community as Chairman of the Canyonland Association of Girl Scouts of America, increasing local troops’ participation in hiking, camping, and other outdoor endeavors. She was a long-time member of the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra Guild. She was a trustee of the Flagstaff School District, and President of the Board of Education, where she co-led the adoption of stronger graduation requirements, the addition of a four-year counseling plan, support for arts education, and upgrading of school facilities.
Professionally, Carol worked as an astrogeologist and geomorphologist for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1968 to 1996. She authored or co-authored over 40 scientific publications. As an investigator for the Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR) missions of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she worked on pioneering projects using radar imaging to study desert sand seas of the world. Funded by a Smithsonian grant, she studied wind forms in the Western Desert of Egypt, where she traversed the barren region from Cairo to the southwest corner of the country. Carol was the first person to recognize that the SIR-A system was penetrating the sand sheets of Egypt’s Western Desert, revealing images of previously unknown, ancient stream beds different from the present Nile River system. Her work with satellite imaging of deserts on Earth contributed to new ways for scientists to interpret and map the geology of Mars using images from NASA’s Viking spacecraft. Carol also worked with NASA on the visual observations team, training astronauts for the Apollo 11, US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab and Space Shuttle missions.
As a delegate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she participated in the first field trips by western scientists to the Taklimakan Desert of Western China. Her work took her to many additional fascinating places, including India, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Peru.
Carol married fellow geologist John (Jack) McCauley in 1993, and they retired from the USGS in 1986/1996. She and Jack enjoyed fly fishing, their boat at Lake Mead, several cruises, and their winter home in Bonita Springs, Florida. Carol also enjoyed playing bridge and bocce ball with her friends, and taking watercolor classes. She lived her last three years full-time in Flagstaff, with three of her daughters as local companions and neighbors. She gave generously to numerous charities.
Carol is survived by her sister, Barbara Sameth Kenedy, of Cary, NC, and brother, Brian Neilson, of San Francisco, CA. Her five daughters, proud participants in her life’s adventures, are Linda Carter Kucera (Ralph), Laura Carter, Grace Carter Zales (Steve), Pamela Carter, and Amelia Breed Barton (Antony). She loved her thirteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The family invites all of Carol’s friends and colleagues to a Celebration of Life at her home in Flagstaff, AZ, on July 23, 2022. For more information about the event, please email [email protected]
Published by Arizona Daily Sun on Jul. 10, 2022.
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