María Fernanda Campa Uranga, la Chata Geology and revolution There are countries where geology is expressed vividly at the surface, and Mexico is one of them. Bathed by two great oceans, Mexico experiences the ravings of the five tectonic plates that stain its landscape with volcanoes, such as the colossal Popocatepetl, and great earthquakes have marked its distant past and recent history. Only in this revolutionary context could a woman like la Chata Campa emerge. María Fernanda Campa Uranga was born in Mexico City on March 22nd 1940, in the bosom of a militant and combative leftwing family. Her father, Valentín Campa, was a union leader on the railroad and spent half of his life in jail. Her mother, Consuelo Uranga ( la Roja ), was tireless in the fight for women’s rights and a tenacious defender of the workers. She was also a very cultured woman, supporting the family with her translations from French and English, as well as running several newspapers in hiding. Between books, militancy and female influence, she gradually forged the agitated personality of la Chata Campa. At just 17 years old, María Fernanda joined the Mexican Communist Party, initiating an active militancy as a student leader that allowed her to meet Che Guevara himself in the Sierra Maestra. During the student revolt of 1968, she had the misfortune to experience the Tlatelolco massacre first-hand; this was a genocide that stained 20th-century Mexican history and left a trail of several hundred dead on Plaza de Las Tres Culturas. After her brilliant schooling, la Chata studied geological engineering at the National Polytechnic Institute, the first woman in the country with this achievement under her belt. As a geologist, she also revolutionized the public’s view of geology. She participated in the founding of the Mexican Petroleum Institute and in the creation of the Grupo de Ingenieros Constitución del 17 , the objective of which was to defend the inalienable right of the general public to benefit from subsoil riches. She worked for years in the exploration of deposits for the Pemex company ( Petróleos Mexicanos ), where she obtained her doctorate in 1977. It was then that la Chata made the transition to teaching, founding the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Taxco and ultimately ending up as a professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico City. Her professional trademarks were perseverance and generosity. During the 2017 earthquake, as an elderly woman, she led a group of researchers to map the effects of the earthquake in Mexico City. In January 2019, at the age of 78, la Chata Campa died. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies observed a minute’s silence in her memory. She departed a fighter, a radical, who approached her profession with ideological purpose. Her great friend, the writer Elena Poniatowska, dedicated this phrase to her: ‘ you raise whirlwinds in your path .’ ‘Geology and revolution’ were the two passions of this petite geologist, who loved to read and converse; to drift through life with that cadence typical of the tropics, while sheltered from the turbulence of the Earth. Only by reading, studying and questioning can we leave ignorance behind. Our awakening advances culture. 32
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