Ogilvie was born in Monymusk, Aberdeenshire in April 1864, the eldest daughter of eight children (five brothers and two sisters, one of whom passed away in infanthood).

[5] In their younger years, Maria and Francis spent time climbing and hiking at their summer cabin in Deeside and in the Highlands.

[3][7] From the experiences she had with her older brother, Gordon gained remarkable talents for observation with quick intuitive understandings and an inexhaustible enthusiasm for fieldwork.

[8] Even though she was good enough to perform with the academy orchestra, she decided to leave and began to enhance her scientific knowledge by getting a Bachelor of Science at Heriot-Watt College.

She was refused admission as women were not admitted to higher education institutions at the time in Germany, this despite the efforts of several influential friends and colleagues, including geologist Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen.

However, after observing the preserved fossil corals found in Stuores, Richthofen pushed her to focus on geology and map and study what she would find in this area near the Dolomites.

[7] For two summers, Gordon, even through dangerous at times, climbed, hiked and studied multiple areas in the Dolomites which included suggestions from Richthofen such as the St. Cassian, Cortina d’Ampezzo and Schluderbach districts.

[3][7] Gordon began to teach local collectors of the area to be more careful when describing, collecting and recording the fossils they had found.

These are a very distinct range of mountains, characterized by high, dramatic peaks, which were thought to have been formed from the remains of coral atolls in an ancient sea.

Gordon challenged this idea with her theory of 'crust-torsion', the notion that the mountains had been formed by the pushing, twisting, and folding of the Earth's crust.

Being a single woman in this area she attracted attention, but she was ambitious and determined, as is shown in her perseverance to forward knowledge, even when she received no acknowledgement or recognition.

This is something she highlighted in her reply to the President of the Geological Society years later, when she received her Lyell Medal (Ogilvie Gordon 1932), and once she had set her mind on something; nothing and nobody could distract her.

In 1900, she and Agnes Kelly became the first women to be awarded a PhD from the University of Munich, receiving a distinction in the fields of geology, paleontology, and zoology.

[8][15] By the year 1913, Maria Gordon had written many geological surveys, analyses, and sample collections about the Dolomites, until she finally had enough to publish a general explanation and study of the geomorphological processes that had led to their mountainous creation.

Progress was going along well, and the first few of Gordon’s maps had been drawn on lithographic stone and were set to begin the printing process when World War I began in 1914.

[7] Finally, in 1927, Gordon was able to publish her major scientific work by the Geographical Survey of Austria institute, entitled The Gröden, Fassa and Enneberg areas in the South Tyrolean Dolomites and subtitled Geological Descriptions with emphasis on overthrust fault phenomena.

After her major publication of the approximately 400-page treatise, in 1928, she wrote two geological guidebooks for tourists and amateurs about the Dolomites, with the goal of increasing tourism in the region.

Fighting for the extension of schooling past the age of fourteen, Gordon believed that young girls had the potential to achieve more than just voluntary jobs such as homemakers.

[16] On February 8, 1922 she was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate for David Lloyd George supporting National Liberals at the Canterbury constituency.