State Geologist Ed Murphy gives his final quarterly report to the North Dakota Industrial Commission on May 12, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Orledge/North Dakota Monitor)
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota’s state geologist is quietly one of the most important energy officials in state government.
The current occupant, Ed Murphy, is retiring this summer after half a century. His 49-year career with the North Dakota Geological Survey has involved advancing research crucial to oil and gas exploration, laying the foundation for a potential critical minerals industry, and digging, literally, into the state’s prehistoric past.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission praised Murphy’s 22-year tenure as state geologist as exceptional last week, citing his leadership, work on identifying rare earth minerals present in North Dakota, efforts to protect the environment, and production of detailed elevation and landslide maps for the state.
“You have built the best geological survey in the country through your great work, along with the hiring of great employees,” said Nathan Anderson, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, which oversees the geological survey.
Murphy said the most important work has been looking toward the future.
“I have a lot of confidence in the agency moving forward,” Murphy said. “If you go back to 1895 when the North Dakota Geological Survey was formed, we’ve always done a good job of looking ahead and anticipating things.”
That distinguished career nearly ended almost before it began, on several occasions. Rattlesnakes. Venomous spiders. Rabies. Within a handful of years in the 1980s, Murphy may have led one of the more dangerous lives in the state.
“I feel like there’s some false advertising. You should be in here in a leather jacket and a fedora,” said Gov. Kelly Armstrong, who chairs the Industrial Commission.
In 1982, Murphy came across what might have been the first log cabin ever built in Billings County. He stepped inside and felt movement by his foot.
“I looked down. It was a rattle of a rattlesnake,” Murphy said. “Of course, I was levitating. I was trying to get out of there. My heart was beating.”
He escaped. A few minutes later he stopped by the Little Missouri River and his two-wheel drive truck got stuck in the sand. He used a hatchet and wood from a nearby wood pile to give his truck leverage. Along the way his left arm swelled up. He assumed it was a strained ligament from the physical work.
The next day, Murphy enters an emergency room in Bismarck to ask for help. The doctor takes one look and fetches a mirror to show the geologist a pair of fang marks on his elbow. He’d been bitten by a black widow spider, presumably from the wood pile he’d used.
“So within minutes, I went from being really lucky to really unlucky,” Murphy said. “I don’t know how many people have their luckiest and unluckiest moments just minutes apart.”
Murphy had another escapade a few years later. He came across a horde of cats at a landfill near Harvey while helping the Department of Health in 1986. They’d found a transformer in a wood pile a couple months earlier and he was helping check for groundwater contamination.
Most of the cats scattered. One leaped at his face when he peered into a cardboard box. He was bitten on the hand through two layers of gloves.
Murphy drove away and stopped by the local police station. He asked the officer on duty how prevalent rabies is in the area.
“He said, ‘We’re the No. 1 county in the state,’” Murphy said. “So he gave me his .22 rifle.”
Murphy went back to the site and put out canned tuna as bait to see if the offending cat would appear. His plan was to wound the cat and somehow catch it so it could be tested for rabies. The cat didn’t show.
Murphy went to the hospital for a rabies shot, but the doctor had never given one before.
“So he’s reading the instructions,” Murphy recalled. “He said, ‘Well, it says five simultaneously.’” So the doctor gathered up a few nurses and on a count of three, they gave him five shots at once.
It was better safe than sorry. Rabies is lethal and there was no way to determine if Murphy had been infected without catching and testing the cat.
Murphy fondly recalls those early days working in western North Dakota. Working with farmers and ranchers in the area has been a highlight. But he could go days without seeing another human soul.
“When I started in the late ’70s out there it was still, at least to me, it was still kind of a wild country without a lot of people out there,” Murphy said. “But every one of them, the ranchers, farmers, you could depend on them if you needed help.”
Murphy has given presentations to nine different iterations of the North Dakota Industrial Commission since 1991, of various political affiliations. Members are the governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner.
“You’d be hard pressed to figure out what people’s politics are, because you’re just doing the business of the state of North Dakota, and it’s been a privilege,” Murphy said.
The geologist recalls former Gov. Jack Dalrymple, just before leaving office in 2016, said Murphy had the best job in state government.
“That’s exactly how I feel,” Murphy said. “It’s been a fantastic place to work.”
Murphy will retire July 1. The Department of Mineral Resources announced last week Clint Boyd will be the new state geologist. Boyd has been serving as senior paleontologist for the state.
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