Carlotta Joaquina Maury

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Carlotta Joaquina Maury

Carlotta Joaquina Maury (born January 6, 1874 in Hastings-on-Hudson , New York , † January 3, 1938 in Yonkers , New York) was an American geologist , stratigraphic researcher and paleontologist . Her main research interests were stratigraphy and the fossil fauna of Brazil, Venezuela and the Caribbean.

Life

Carlotta Joaquina Maury was one of three children of Mytton and Virginia Draper Maury. Her father was an Episcopal clergyman and an amateur fossil collector. Her older sister Antonia Maury (1866–1952) was a well-known astronomer. Her cousin Matthew Fontaine Maury was a naval officer and hydrograph, and her maternal grandfather - John William Draper - was a scientist and historian.

After graduating from Radcliffe College , where she developed an interest in zoology and geology, she studied at Cornell University . In 1896 she obtained her bachelor's degree there. She then received a Schuyler Graduate Research Fellow from Cornell University, which she used to study palaeontology for two years at the University of Paris . 1898, she returned to Cornell, where she in 1902 with her thesis A Comparison of the Oligocene of Western Europe and the Southern United States for Ph.D. PhD. From 1904 to 1906 she continued her research at Columbia University , where she also worked as an assistant in the department of paleontology. In 1907, Maury joined the Louisiana Geological Survey, where she was responsible for surveying and reporting on state oil and rock salt. In 1909 she moved to Barnard College , where she worked as a lecturer until 1912. While teaching at Barnard, she took part in a geological expedition to Venezuela, led by geologist Arthur Clifford Veatch (1878-1938). In 1910 she became an advisor to the Venezuelan department of the Shell petroleum company on geological and stratigraphic issues. From 1912 to 1915 she was a professor at Huguenot College of the University of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. In 1916 Maury was awarded the Sarah Berliner Scholarship (named after Emil Berliner's mother, who died in 1903), which enabled her to finance and manage her first expedition to the Dominican Republic that same year . Their goal was to organize the stratigraphic layers of the Miocene and Oligocene , which consisted of sedimentary rocks with heavy fossil deposits. She was interested in the Valle del Cibao in the north of the island, where conchologists and paleontologists had been researching since the mid-19th century. She collected and identified hundreds of newly discovered fossil molluscs and many other invertebrates. She also revised the geological age of the sedimentary rock and redefined the geological formations. In 1918 she joined the Brazil Survey, where she was appointed an official paleontologist by the Brazilian government. Maury also wrote detailed reports for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City . She continued her work for Shell and the Brazilian government until her death.

literature

  • Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists . Infobase Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-143-811-882-6 : pp. 491-492

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ross H. Nehm & Ann F. Budd: Overview of Past Palaeobiological Research in the Cibao Valley In: RH Nehm & AF Budd (eds.): Evolutionary Stasis and Change in the Dominician Republic Neogene . Springer Science + Business Media BV 2008. p. 4
personal data
SURNAME Maury, Carlotta Joaquina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Hastings-on-Hudson , New York
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1938
Place of death Yonkers , New York