Elzanna Margaret Mercado Weage

Elzanna Margaret Mercado Weage was born in Chile in 1947. As daughter of an engineer, who took her everywhere, she traveled a lot and went up and down the hills all the time. Once she finished high school, she chose to be a geologist, at a time it was considered a profession for men, but studying and working side by side with them, she was accepted as one more colleague, Once she ended the University, she decided to work as field geologist to make geological maps of the still unknown territories of the Atacama Desert, at the Chilean Geological Survey, which meant to travel and walk endless distances up and down the mountains and valleys. Seated in Copiapó, Chile, she also started a family with three children. Just before being 30, she was designated chief geologist of the Institution, in times when chiefs were men, and older. During almost ten years she managed to map the geology of the Pacific costal ranges and in the high Andes. As a result of this important work, she was sent to study at the Tübingen University in Germany for two years. Later, she decided to migrate to Colombia with her children, and adopted that nationality. There she contributed with geological compilations and was editor of all the geosciences documents of the Colombian Geological Survey. She taught different geological subjects at several different Universities, such as physical geology, igneous and metamorphic petrography, geochemistry, geochronology, but was not able to work in the field. She also studied tourist and hotel administration to work the geological themes in National Parks, geotourism, and did this in Colombia and Chile. At the end of her career, she travelled back to Chile where she is retired and lives next to the Pacific Coast in the Atacama Desert.