Carlotta Joaquina Maury

Carlotta Maury in a Paleontology Laboratory, at Cornell University 1902. Fossils that were found by Carlotta Maury, areas of Old Eocene beds in Trinidad. Carlotta Joaquina Maury (January 6, 1874 – January 3, 1938) was a geologist, stratigrapher and paleontologist, specialising in Tertiary mollusks.

Early life Carlotta Joaquina Maury was born on January 6, 1874, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Her father was the Reverend Mytton Maury, son of Sarah Mytton Maury and a direct descendant of the Reverend James Maury. Maury's mother was Virginia Draper, a daughter of Antonia Coetana de Paiva Pereira Gardner and Dr. John William Draper. The latter, with his son Henry Draper, were pioneering astronomers who privately funded the Harvard Observatory. Her other maternal grandfather, Daniel Gardner, was physician to Carlota Joaquina of Spain and her husband John VI of Portugal, titular Emperor of Brazil.

Her sister, Antonia Maury became an astronomer, and worked as a scientist and a mathematician in the Harvard Observatory. Using her stratigraphical knowledge, she was able to find a correlation of those faunas with similar faunas around the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. The monograph detailed fossils from the geological epoch of the Lower Miocene that were found in Rio Pirabas and Bragança to Belém.