Laura Lee Weinzierl


Laura Lee Weinzierl was an American petroleum geologist and micropaleontologist who worked in the Texas and Gulf Coast oil fields.

Early life and education

Lane was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She graduated from Fox [Tech High School|San Antonio High School] in 1917, and earned a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1923. At university, she was a charter member of the Beta chapter of Chi Upsilon, a geology honor society for women.

Career

Lane worked for the Rio Bravo Oil Company for a summer during college. She was a micropaleontologist for Marland Oil Company. She studied Foraminifera to identify sites likely to contain oil and gas in the Texas and Gulf Coast regions. She was a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists and a charter member of the Houston Geological Society. She presented her research at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists meeting in Houston in 1924.

Publications

Lane married fellow geologist John Frederick Weinzierl in 1926. She died in 1928, in Houston, at the age of 28, from an asthma attack. A collection of her papers and artifacts is in the natural history collection of Sam Houston State University.