Esther Applin
Esther Applin
Esther Applin
1895–1972
Esther English Richards Applin is best known for her work on the biostratigraphy of the Gulf Coast and her groundbreaking contribution to the use of forams in biostratigraphy.
“Gentlemen, here is this chit of a girl right out of college, telling us that we can use foraminifera to determine the age of formation. Gentlemen, you know it can’t be done.”
— Comments about Esther Applin’s presentation at the Geological Society of America Meeting in 1921 (as quoted in Gries 2018)
Esther’s family moved around when she was young. She lived on Alcatraz Island in California from 1907 to 1920 due to her father’s job supervising construction of the prison. She commuted by ferry to attend school in San Francisco and later the University of California at Berkeley. She graduated with honors in paleontology and then earned a master’s degree.
Esther was hired by Rio Bravo Oil Company in Houston, Texas. She lived in a boarding house with Alva Ellisor and Hedwig Kniker. The three women shared research and ideas even though they worked for different companies. In 1925, Esther, Alva, and Hedwig published a landmark paper that showed the value of forams for biostratigraphy. Afterwards, micropaleontology dominated oil exploration for decades.
Headline about the discovery of Esther Applin, Hedwig Kniker, and Alva Ellisor from the L.A. Times, March 28, 1926. “Germ theory aids oil hunt. Women geologists address petroleum session. Story of ‘Foraminifera’ told with lantern slides. Sea life millions of years old traced in rocks.” The story is about a presentation given at the 1926 AAPG meeting in Dallas, Texas. In the body of the article, all three women's names are reported incorrectly.
Esther married geologist Paul Applin (1891–1972) in 1923 and had two children, born in 1926 and 1927. Esther’s story is somewhat unusual for the early 1900s because she continued working for Rio Bravo Oil Company after she married and became a mother. She worked during her pregnancy, staying up late into the night she gave birth:
“I stayed well, and busy as usual. With Laura Lane Wienzel I was working on a paper of the forams of the Yegua of Texas . . . we were working on that project until almost midnight of the night Wegi was born.”
— Esther Applin, from her unpublished memoirs (as quoted in Gries 2018)
Esther quickly went back to work part time after giving birth to her daughter, Louise (“Wegi”), in 1926. At the time, she and her husband were living in different cities over 200 miles apart for their jobs.
Esther quit before the birth of her second child and relocated to live with Paul. She was a consultant while her children were growing up. She travelled for work often and had live-in help from relatives and paid caretakers to look after her kids. During the Great Depression (1929–1939), Esther’s family sometimes depended on her income to get by when Paul was not paid.
In 1944, she and Paul joined the United States Geological Survey. In this stage of their careers, they often worked and published together. In 1962, Esther received a Citation for Meritorious Service from the U.S. Department of the Interior. In the citation, she was lauded for her foundational contributions to the development of the petroleum industry in the southeastern United States.
Esther died in 1972. She is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Keene, New Hampshire, alongside her husband Paul. Their gravestone says: “Pioneers in Science, Parters in Love.”
Selected works by Esther Applin
Applin, E.R. 1933. A micro-fossiliferous Upper Cretaceous section from North Dakota. Journal of Paleontology 7: 215–220. Link
Applin, E.R., and L. Jordan. 1945. Diagnostic foraminifera from subsurface formations in Florida. Journal of Paleontology 19: 129–148. Link
Applin, E.R. 1955. A biofacies of Woodbine age in Southeastern Gulf Coast region. USGS Professional Paper 264-I: 187–197, plates 48, 49. Link
Applin, E.R., A.E. Ellisor, and H.T. Kniker. 1925. Subsurface stratigraphy of the coastal plain of Texas and Louisiana. AAPG Bulletin 9: 79–122. Link
Biographical references & further reading
Berdan, J.M. 1975. Memorial to Esther Richards Applin, 1895-1972. Geological Society of America Memorials 4: 14–18. Reprinted by the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research. Link
Gries, R. 2018. Three women, one breakthrough: Unsung heroines who transformed oil exploration. Search and Discovery Article #70319. Link
Gries, R.R. 2018. How female geologists were written out of history: The micropaleontology breakthrough. In B.A. Johnson, ed. Women and Geology: Who are we, where have we come from, and where are we going? Geological Society of America Memoir 214: 11–21. Link
Gries, R. R. 2018. Anomalies—Pioneering women in petroleum geology: 1917–2017. Revised Edition. Steuben Press, Longmont, Colorado.
Gries, R.R., 2020. Buried discoveries of early female petroleum geologists. In C.V. Burek and B.M. Higgs, eds. Celebrating 100 years of female fellowship of the Geological Society: Discovering forgotten histories. Geological Society Special Publication 506. The Geological Society, London. Link
Kortscha, M. 2017. Women in UT Geology. Texas Geosciences News, 20 November 2017. Link
Maher, J.C. 1973. Memorial to Esther Richards Applin (1895–1972). Journal of Paleontology, 47: 340–342.
Stricker, B. 2017. Daring to dig : Adventures of women in American paleontology. PRI Special Publication No. 54. Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, New York.
Video content
AAPG Rock Stars Videos, Part 2: Flexing their muscles: Link