Alan Bartholomai

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Alan Bartholomai AM (1938-2015) was a geologist and palaeontologist, and Director of the Queensland Museum from 1969-1999. [1]

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Alan Bartholomai was born on 31 December 1938 in Boonah, Queensland. He attended Boonah State School and after his parents moved the family to the Gold Coast, he attended the Southport State School. He boarded at Gatton College in 1953-1954 where he took his Junior Certificate, and completed his senior studies at Southport State High School. [2] [3] He was able to obtain a Commonwealth Scholarship to attend the University of Queensland and pursue a BSc in geology and zoology, graduating in 1960. [2]

Career

After graduation, Bartholomai was appointed the Curator of Geology at the Queensland Museum. He studied his MSc on fossil kangaroos, under the supervision of Dorothy Hill, and graduated in 1969. [2] He continued his study toward a PhD, taking this in 1973 with a thesis on the Stratigraphy, skeletal morphology and evolution of the Upper Cainozoic and recent Macropodidae of Queensland. He became Director of the Queensland Museum in 1969 [1] and continued in this role until 1999. Despite the difficulties of balancing this job with research, he maintained a steady interest in Cretaceous fish faunas of the Great Artesian Basin and published eleven papers on this topic.

The Queensland Museum expanded under his direction; staff employed there increased from 44 to 200. [2] He sought to employ professional staff with science and curatorial backgrounds and help the Museum build visitor numbers by revitalising displays. [2] The Museum purchased life sized models of Triceratops horridus in 1976 and Tyrannosaurs rex in 1978, at his recommendation. [2] The Museum was also moved to the South Bank Cultural Centre Precinct in 1985, as it had outgrown its previous location in Fortitude Valley near the Brisbane Exhibition show grounds. [2]

Further extensions to the Queensland Museum network occurred during Bartholomai's time as Director, including the establishment of the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying at Woolloongabba, Woodworks in Gympie, the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba, the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville, the Museum of North West Queensland in Mt Isa and the Science Centre in Brisbane. [2]

He was an Honorary Research Fellow with James Cook University. He served on a number of committees at both state and national level. He was a member of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, the Lizard Island Research Committee (Australian Museum) and a past President of the Royal Society of Queensland.

Bartholomai participated in the American Museum of Natural History expedition in 1971. He also undertook palaeontological work at Rewan in central Queensland. [1] He joined the Natural History Museum (British) expedition to collect Queensland Mesozoic vertebrates in 1978. [4] He had studied the Riversleigh site in Queensland in 1965, [5] before it would become a major fossil site in 1975. [2] He facilitated the acquisition of the Muttaburrasaurus and Minmi dinosaur specimens. [1] [6]

Other collections which Bartholomai pursued for the Museum included a collection of personal memorabilia of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. [2]

Bartholomai established exchange relationships for the Museum with Saitama Prefectural Museum of Japan in 1989. He was a part of the Australian delegation to the 1998 United Nations Environment Program Convention on Biological Diversity, which aimed to stress the vital role of exchange in assisting the taxonomy of biological collections. He was also an advocate for the return of 3,297 items of the Sir William Macgregor Collection of Papua New Guinea Artefacts to PNG from 1979-1999. [2] [7]

Honours

· 2012 - Member of the Order of Australia for his service to the advancement of science, particularly through administrative roles with the Queensland Museum. [8]

Fossils named for him

[2]

Fossil taxa identified by him

[2]

Personal life

Bartholomai married Patricia Sheehy and they had three children- Dean, Kim and Leigh. [2] He died on 17 December 2015. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macropodidae</span> Family of marsupial mammals

Macropodidae is a family of marsupials that includes kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other groups. These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and are native to the Australian continent, New Guinea and nearby islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian megafauna</span>

The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, and the roles of human and climatic factors in their extinction are contested.

<i>Muttaburrasaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Muttaburrasaurus was a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur, which lived in what is now northeastern Australia sometime between 110 and 103 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period. It has been recovered in some analyses as a member of the iguanodontian clade Rhabdodontomorpha. After Kunbarrasaurus, it is Australia's most completely known dinosaur from skeletal remains. It was named after Muttaburra, the site in Queensland, Australia, where it was found.

<i>Minmi paravertebra</i> Ankylosaurian dinosaur genus from early Cretaceous Period

Minmi is a genus of small herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period of Australia, about 133 to 120 million years ago.

Rhoetosaurus, named after Rhoetus, a titan in Greek Mythology, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic (Oxfordian) Walloon Coal Measures of what is now eastern Australia. Rhoetosaurus is estimated to have been about 15 metres (49 ft) long, weighing about 9 tonnes. Subsequent authors have sometimes misspelled the name: Rhaetosaurus ; Rheteosaurus.

<i>Palorchestes</i> Extinct genus of marsupial

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<i>Sthenurus</i> Extinct genus of marsupials

Sthenurus is an extinct genus of kangaroos. With a length around 3 m (10 ft), some species were twice as large as modern extant species. Sthenurus was related to the better-known Procoptodon. The subfamily Sthenurinae is believed to have separated from its sister taxon, the Macropodinae, halfway through the Miocene, and then its population grew during the Pliocene.

Ralph E. Molnar is a paleontologist who had been Curator of Mammals at the Queensland Museum and more recently associated with the Museum of Northern Arizona. He is also a research associate at the Texas natural Science Centre. He co-authored descriptions of the dinosaurs Muttaburrasaurus, Kakuru, Minmi and Ozraptor, as well as the mammal Steropodon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shire of Boonah</span> Local government area in Queensland, Australia

The Shire of Boonah was a local government area in South East Queensland, Australia, about 80 kilometres (50 mi) southwest of Brisbane. The shire covered an area of 1,921.6 square kilometres (741.9 sq mi), and existed from 1880 until its merger with parts of the Shire of Beaudesert and City of Ipswich to form the Scenic Rim Region on 15 March 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beaudesert Shire</span> Local government area in Queensland, Australia

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Mary Julia Wade was an Australian palaeontologist, known for her role as the Deputy Director of the Queensland Museum. Some of her most renowned work was on the Precambrian Ediacaran Biota in South Australia.

The Toolebuc Formation is a geological formation that extends from Queensland across South Australia and the Northern Territory in Australia, whose strata date back to the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, protostegid turtles, sharks, chimaeroids and bony fish remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.

The Allaru Formation, also known as the Allaru Mudstone, is a geological formation in Queensland, Australia, whose strata date back to the Early Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalbar, Queensland</span> Town in Queensland, Australia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prolacertidae</span> Extinct family of reptiles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fossil Cave</span> Flooded cave in the Limestone Coast area of South Australia

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Kenton Stewart Wall Campbell, known as Ken Campbell, was an Australian palaeontologist and academic. Campbell was born in Ipswich, Queensland. He was the son of two store clerks who moved their family to Boonah during the Great Depression. He attended primary school in Ipswich, Boonah and Coorparoo. After winning a scholarship to attend Brisbane Grammar School in 1940, Campbell went on to university. In 1945, Campbell entered his second year of his study, attending lectures given by Dr Dorothy Hill, who had returned from World War II service in the WRANS. Her academic rigour inspired him. He took his B.Sc. with Honours from the University of Queensland in 1949 on her advice, followed by his M.Sc. in 1951 and PhD in 1958. His research was in Permian brachiopods of the Bowen and adjacent basins.

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<i>Kadimakara australiensis</i> Extinct species of reptile

Kadimakara is an extinct genus of early archosauromorph reptile from the Arcadia Formation of Queensland, Australia. It was seemingly a very close relative of Prolacerta, a carnivorous reptile which possessed a moderately long neck. The generic name Kadimakara references prehistoric creatures from Aboriginal myths which may have been inspired by ice-age megafauna. The specific name K. australiensis relates to the fact that it was found in Australia. Prolacerta and Kadimakara were closely related to the Archosauriformes, a successful group which includes archosaurs such as crocodilians, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs.

Ipswich–Boonah–Rathdowney Road is a continuous 87.8 kilometres (54.6 mi) road route in the Ipswich and Scenic Rim regions of Queensland, Australia. It has two official names, Ipswich–Boonah Road and Boonah–Rathdowney Road. The entire route is signed as State Route 93, and much of it is also part of Tourist Drive 16.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Mather, Patricia (1986). A time for a museum: the history of the Queensland Museum 1862-1986. Queensland Museum. p. 143. ISBN   0724216456.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Rozefelds, Andrew (2017). "In memoriam Alan Bartholomai (1938 - 2015)". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 60: 119–131.
  3. ↑ "591 IPSWICH AND DISTRICT STATE SCHOLARSHIP PASSES". Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. : 1909 - 1954). 15 January 1953. p. 3. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  4. ↑ "They' ve found an ichthyosaur in Queensland". Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982). 20 June 1979. p. 22. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  5. ↑ "Minmi Crossing memoirs" (PDF). Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  6. ↑ "Australian Age of Dinosaurs | Muttaburrasaurus langdoni". www.australianageofdinosaurs.com. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  7. ↑ "PNG artifacts will return to us as gifts". Papua New Guinea Post-Courier (Port Moresby : 1969 - 1981). 4 October 1974. p. 15. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  8. ↑ "THE AUSTRALIA DAY 2012 HONOURS". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Special (National : 1977 - 2012). 26 January 2012. p. 1. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  9. ↑ "THE COURIER-MAIL TRIBUTES". tributes.couriermail.com.au. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
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