Elizabeth Anne Elliott

Elizabeth Anne Elliott (March 19, 1918 – July 7, 2001) pioneered the expansion of the role of women in petroleum geology. She was an active member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) for 56 years, and was an elected fellow of the Geological Society of America.
Early life and background
Elizabeth Anne Elliott (née Baker) on March 19, 1918, near New Cordell, Oklahoma. Her father, Bruce W. Baker, was the only physician in Cordell, and as a young girl Elizabeth Baker would accompany her father on his numerous travels to visit patients in their community. In high school, Elizabeth had the highest academic achievements of her class and became the valedictorian.
In 1940 she pursued a post-secondary education from the University of Oklahoma, and from a class of 40, she was one of 3 women who graduated with a B.S. in geology. Elizabeth had initially enrolled in pre-med but switched her major to geology because she was inspired by Charles Decker, one of the founders of the "American Association of Petroleum Geologists" (AAPG).
Continuing her studies, she attended University of Colorado, where she held a teaching fellowship and research grant in micropaleontology during which she established correlations in cretaceous shales. She also founded a micropaleontology library at University of Colorado. The Second World War interrupted her graduate education, and she was unable to finish her master's degree.
Elizabeth Baker's work with cretaceous shales fostered a better understanding of the Cretaceous Interior Seaway.
Elizabeth Baker married Guy Elliott and took his surname for her own. The couple moved to Seattle, Washington, where Elizabeth Elliott took a job as a civil engineer at the U.S. Corps of Engineers. At that time she also worked as a stratigrapher for the U.S. Geological Services in Denver, Colorado.
Afterwards, she worked in Midland, Texas for Gulf Oil. During her time working for Gulf Oil, Mrs. Elliott worked at well sites, a job that was very rare for a woman to hold in the 1940s.
Later, she worked for the company Mobil Oil in both New York and in Dallas, Texas. Mobil Oil was one of the two largest descendant entities from Standard Oil. After her husband's death in 1960, Mrs. Elliott moved to Mobil's Oklahoma city office, where she worked on the stratigraphy of the Permian and the Arkoma basins. While with Mobil Oil, Mrs. Elliott evaluated offshore Atlantic basins and Central American concessions. She trained many young geologists, who affectionately nicknamed her “Aunt Betty.”
At 67 years old, she opened her own petroleum geology consulting office in Dallas. Mrs. Elliott was said to have "...excelled at sample identification and "sat" wells, a very uncommon task for a woman."
Throughout her career, she was an active member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. She served as the 2nd VP for the Dallas Geological Society from 1985-1986. At age 81, Mrs. Elliott received the Pioneer Award at the AAPG Annual Convention, marking the first time the award had ever been given to a woman.
Mrs. Elliott served her community as an active member of her neighborhood Protestant Christian churches. When she died on July 7, 2001, at age 83, memorial and funeral services were held for her by her church communities in Dallas, Texas, where she lived at her death, and in her childhood hometown of Cordell, Oklahoma. She was laid to rest in Cordell.
References
Further reading
Gries, Robbie "Women Sitting Wells:A Forgotten History", September 21, 2015. Retrieved on October 14, 2023
1918 births
2001 deaths
American women geologists
American geologists
University of Oklahoma alumni
University of Colorado fellows
20th-century American women
20th-century American people