All of Maria Gordon's geological research was carried out in the South Tyrol, an area of the Italian Alps close to the border with Austria. This area of the Alps is part of the geologically-complex Dolomites. The Dolomites are a very distinct range of mountains, characterised 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. Through observation and measurement of the geological structures in the Dolomites, she was able to determine that there were two phases of folding and structural deformation, leading to a new interpretation of the tectonic structure of the Alps.