Pokrovskaia, Irina
Pokrovskaia, Irina Mitrofanovna
Born June 28 (July 11), 1902, in Orel; died May 3, 1970, in Leningrad. Soviet paleontologist. Doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences (1947). One of the founders of the Soviet school of palynologists.
Pokrovskaia graduated from Leningrad University in 1930. From 1944 she directed the palynological laboratory created by her at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Geology. Her principal works were on fossil spores and pollen, the use of spore and pollen analysis for the stratigraphy of Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits in the USSR, and the history of the development of late Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene floras. Pokrovskaia was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1951 for the work Pollen Analysis (1950), of which she was coauthor.