Gardner, Julia (Anna) (1882-1960)

US geologist and palaeontologist whose work was important for petroleum geologists establishing standard stratigraphic sections for Tertiary rocks in the southern Caribbean. Julia Gardner was born in South Dakota and educated at Bryn Mawr College and Johns Hopkins University. She worked for the US Geological Survey 1911-54. During World War II, she joined the Military Geologic Unit where she helped to locate Japanese beaches from which incendiary bombs were being launched, by identifying shells in the sand ballast of the balloons. Her work on the Cenozoic stratigraphic palaeontology of the Coastal Plain, Texas and the Rio Grande Embayment in northeast Mexico led to the publication of Correlation of the Cenozoic Formations of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain and the Caribbean Region 1943 (with two coauthors).