Cindy Ann Yeilding

Cindy Ann Yeilding was born on May 23, 1960. She is a devoted wife and a mother of two children. Her love for geology started when she was young and her mother would take her to hunt for fossils and rocks. In college Yeilding had originally pursued a major in math but her true passion was art and architecture. So after realizing math was not a career she was interested in she turned to geology for the perfect meld of art and science. Yeilding got lots of support from her teachers, mentors, family, and friends which only strengthened her interest in geology and nature.

Geology presented many opportunities for Yeilding to further her career and pursue her interests. She got the chance to work with amazing geoscientists who were just as passionate as Yeilding. Being in nature, exploring the world, and gathering information to discover the history of rocks are a few of the many things that excited Yeilding the most.

Despite her passion and brilliance in the subject, Yeilding still faced some difficulties as a woman in the industry. During the early parts of her career while working at oil rigs many male engineers disregarded Yeilding and assumed she didn't understand the complexity of drilling. Despite this she persevered and built relationships with the crew that allowed them to realize how valuable she was to the team.[2]

Yeilding initially pursued a math degree,[3] from being praised as being talented in mathematics during her high school years. Eventually she decided to pursue her true passion, art history and architecture, and switched to a geology major.

Yeilding studied Geology at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She then graduated from there with a bachelor's degree in Science.[4]

Soon after, she continued to pursue Geology at a graduate level and attained her Master's in Science degree University of North Carolina.[4]

Originally Yeilding had joined Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio), an American oil company, as a summer intern. From there her career with Sohio took off. The company hired her in 1985 as an exploration geologist and a carbonate specialist after she received her master’s degree in geology. During this role, Yeilding was able to contribute to academia by delivering short lectures to institutions such as American Association of Petroleum, assisted in developing courses and published papers on geology.[5] Yeilding has delivered presentations to various esteemed societies as well.[6] Shortly after this she became an operations geologist and oversaw off shore-geologic activities.[7]

In 1987 Sohio was bought by British Petroleum (BP) which opened doors for Yeilding to advance in her career and she has state loyal to the company ever since.[8] Yeilding’s experience working off-shore led her to working in various basins globally. Most notably, she was an influential figure in the exploration and appraisal of the Gulf of Mexico which led to her becoming Chief Geoscientist.[1] Later she held the position of Research and Development Manager and worked her way up to overall Vice President for BP - the title she holds to this day. In 2020, Yeilding was the chairperson for a study on capturing, using, and storing carbon performed by the National Petroleum Council.[9] Yeilding is on the leadership council for BP’s Million Women Mentors and she also holds the title of executive sponsor for BP Women's Network.[6]

Yeilding is member of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Board of Directors[10]

She is often miscredited in her research as "Cindy Yielding", with sources misspelling her last name.

Throughout Yeilding’s well known and respected career, she has been acknowledged for several rewards and honorary positions. Some of these honorary positions include Yeilding being a founder of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Women’s Committee, she was recognized as a Distinguished Lecturer among the AAPG, and as well she was awarded in 2003 by the AAPG the title of “Legend of Exploration”.[4] As Yeilding continued her career she was recognized and awarded for her exceptional works many more times. As she worked in the city of Houston, she was recognized and awarded the Houston Business Journal's "2016 Women in Energy Leadership" award.[9] As well Yeilding was included in Houston's Top 15 Business Women and Houston’s 50 Most influential Women of 2016. Lastly, the achievement Yeilding received in 2017 was her being recognized as the honoree of the Manufacturing Institutes STEP Award for women. STEP stands for science, technology, engineering, and production.[6]

Yielding influence with AAPG’S Women's committee gave her the platform to launch the OTC Women's networking committee where she leads in promoting high school STEM challenges.[6] She states that both organizations are non for profit and is way for her to give back to the industry by providing.[11]

Yeilding is also a huge asset to British Petroleum’s (BP) programs to support young women aspiring to enter careers in STEM. The company takes place in high school outreach programs that bring science and engineering students to shadow people like Yeilding and her fellow colleagues. They also engage in programs that mentor university level women and BP sponsors “take your child to work day” where elementary and high school students get to learn from top scientists and engineers who work at BP.[2]

Yeilding has contributed to and published numerous research works, some of which include the following:

• Structural Controls on Tertiary Deep Water Deposition in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: A study that analyzes how the seabed topographies of the northern Gulf of Mexico are created, the factors involved in its creation and the role of the regional and local structural setting as well as the area's previous tectonic and deposition history.[12]
• Spatial and Temporal Variations in the Facies Associations of Depositional Sequences on the Slope: Examples from the Miocene-Pleistocene of the Gulf of Mexico: The study of the deep water deposition systems of northern Gulf of Mexico which demonstrates that the building blocks that make up the deep water depositional sequences combine in a variable assemblage of facies. These depositional sequences are also predictive since they assemble in an upward succession of high energy to low energy deposits.[13]
• Shelf Margin Processes And Their Impact On Sediment Architecture Of The Plio-Pleistocene, U.S. Gulf of Mexico: An article which aims to describe how the shelf margins in the Plio-Pleistocene of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico varies, with the study of the depositional sequences of these shelf margins as well as how vertical and lateral facies are associated with them. This articles also lays out the ways in which slope deposition can be predicted through the analyzation of the structure of the shelf margins, as well as the relationship between these shelf margin architectures and sea level changes.[14]
• Facies in a shelf-edge delta - An example from the subsurface of the Gulf of Mexico, middle Pliocene, Mississippi Canyon, Block 109: A study of shelf-edge delta systems in the middle Pliocene, Mississippi Canyon, Block 109, which includes analyzation into the characteristics such as vertically stacked shelf-edge delta systems, extensive upper delta-slope deformation, turbidities in the upper slope, gravity and tractional deposits, mouth-bar deposits, and the  lack of delta-plain facies.[15]
• Sedimentary response to Mississippian tectonic activity at the east end of the 38th Parallel fracture zone: A study of the Mississippian est end of the 38th Parallel fracture zone that describes how the east-west uplift is established, as well as records the timing of Paleozoic tectonic movement.[16]
• Is the workstation "killing" geology?: An article in the Bulletin of the Houston Geological Society journal, in which Yeilding describes how advanced technology has aided the geological interpretations and analyzations, while also raising points on how heavy reliance of the geo-scientists on the tools and aids of technology also leads to diminished critical analyzing and thinking.[17]
• Effects of Mississippian Tectonic Movement on Sedimentation and Diagenesis of Greenbrier Group in Eastern Appalachian Plateau: Analyzations of the effects of tectonic movements in Mississippi on the sedimentation in the Eastern Appalachian Plateau. This study describes the characteristics of the sediment layers and lays out how the layers were formed.[18]
• Reservoir Prediction Using the Forest and the Trees: Reducing Reservoir Risk and Uncertainty in Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Exploration by Using a Wide Range and Scale of Predictive Tools: This article from the Bulletin of the Houston Geological Society Journal, talks about the analyzation of the depositional and petroleum systems framework on which the exploration of the Gulf of Mexico is focused.[19]
• Discovery of the Thunder Horse July 1999: Cindy Ann Yeilding was a part of a research team that discovered one of the largest deep water oil fields in BP history named the Thunder Horse. The expedition team undercovered reservoirs in Miocene Turbidite sandstones with two adjacent fields developing at the same time.[20] The Thunder Horse’s contribution to the energy was massive as its facilities house roughly 1.8 million barrels of oil which supplies resources to refineries in both the United States and other Midwest countries.[21]
• Stratigraphic Architecture of an Extensional Orogen: Assisted with the analyzing and study of the Miocene Extensional Belt. This field-based study resulted in new discoveries in stratigraphic architecture, as well as further understanding of the extensional orogen belt located in South California. Field-based studies and quantitative models provide new insights into the stratigraphic architecture of a developing continental extensional orogen. The early Miocene age Mojave Extensional Belt of southern California (MEB) exhibits a tripartite stratigraphy, consisting of (1) pre- to early synextension volcanic deposits, unconformably overlain by (2) syntectonic basement-derived megabreccia and breccia with local finer-grained units, overlain by (3) a posttectonic fining-upward sequence of gravel, sand, shale, and limestone. On a more local scale, stratigraphy and sediment dispersal within the MEB reflect the evolution of the major tectonic elements of the belt: (1) Breakaway zone.[22]