Peter J. Wagner is a paleontologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from The University of Chicago in 1995, conducted postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian Institution, served as a curator at the Field Museum of Natural History from 1996 through 2007, and was at the Smithsonian Institution from 2007 through 2017. He was given the Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society in 2004. His research focuses on macroevolution and paleoecology, especially as regards the systematics, evolutionary dynamics, morphology, and distribution of Paleozoic Molluscs. He has published extensively in such journals as Paleobiology, Systematic Biology, and Science and is a contributor to the Paleobiology Database.
Ulysses S. Grant IV was the son of Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. and the grandson of General of the Army and President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant and United States Senator Jerome B. Chaffee of Colorado. He was an American geologist and paleontologist known for his work on the fossil mollusks of the California Pacific Coast. He was born at his father's farm, Merryweather Farm, in Salem Center, Westchester County, New York. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to San Diego, California.
Charles Abiathar White was an American geologist, paleontologist, and writer whose publications total 238 titles. He was born at North Dighton, Massachusetts. He was the State geologist of Iowa in 1866-70, and professor of natural history in the State University of Iowa in 1867-73. He held a similar position at Bowdoin College in 1873-75, and was geologist and paleontologist of the United States Geological Survey between 1874 and 1892, and after 1895 was an associate in paleontology at the United States National Museum.
Wann Langston Jr. was an American paleontologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Xiaoming Wang is a noted vertebrate paleontologist and geologist born in People's Republic of China and now living and teaching in the United States.
Dr. Judith Schiebout is an American paleontologist, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Geology at Louisiana State University and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at LSU Museum of Natural Science.
Richard Hall Tedford was Curator Emeritus in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, having been named as curator in 1969.
Jeremy Bradford Cook Jackson is an American ecologist, paleobiologist, and conservationist. He is an emeritus professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, senior scientist emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution, and visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. He studies threats and solutions to human impacts on the environment and the ecology and evolution of tropical seas. Jackson has more than 170 scientific publications and 11 books, with nearly 40,000 citations listed on Google Scholar.
Christian Alfred Sidor is an American biologist and paleontologist, Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, as well as curator of vertebrate paleontology and associate director for research and collections at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Previously he was a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. He is a research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History, National Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and Evolutionary Studies Institute. His research focuses on Permian and Triassic tetrapod evolution, especially on therapsids.
Emily Hoskins Vokes, is an American malacologist, palaeontologist, and former university professor. She is an authority on the Muricidae, a large and diverse family of predatory sea snails, or marine gastropod mollusks. Vokes worked both on her own and with her husband, geologist Harold Ernest Vokes.
Paleontology in Maryland refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Maryland. The invertebrate fossils of Maryland are similar to those of neighboring Delaware. For most of the early Paleozoic era, Maryland was covered by a shallow sea, although it was above sea level for portions of the Ordovician and Devonian. The ancient marine life of Maryland included brachiopods and bryozoans while horsetails and scale trees grew on land. By the end of the era, the sea had left the state completely. In the early Mesozoic, Pangaea was splitting up. The same geologic forces that divided the supercontinent formed massive lakes. Dinosaur footprints were preserved along their shores. During the Cretaceous, the state was home to dinosaurs. During the early part of the Cenozoic era, the state was alternatingly submerged by sea water or exposed. During the Ice Age, mastodons lived in the state.
Paleontology in Washington, D.C., refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from Washington, D.C.. Local paleontology is known primarily for two serendipitously discovered dinosaur fossils. The first was a vertebra from a carnivorous dinosaur nicknamed "Capitalsaurus" that was related to Tyrannosaurus rex. "Capitalsaurus" is the official dinosaur of the District of Columbia; the place it was discovered was named Capitalsaurus Court in its honor and it even has its own local holiday. The second major fossil find was a thighbone from the long-necked sauropod Astrodon. The District of Columbia and Maryland are the only places where Early Cretaceous dinosaur remains are known to have been preserved east of the Mississippi River.
Paleontology in Georgia refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Georgia. During the early part of the Paleozoic, Georgia was largely covered by seawater. Although no major Paleozoic discoveries have been uncovered in Georgia, the local fossil record documents a great diversity of ancient life in the state. Inhabitants of Georgia's early Paleozoic sea included corals, stromatolites, and trilobites. During the Carboniferous local sea levels dropped and a vast complex of richly vegetated delta formed in the state. These swampy deltas were home to early tetrapods which left behind footprints that would later fossilize. Little is known of Triassic Georgia and the Jurassic is absent altogether from the state's rock record. During the Cretaceous, however, southern Georgia was covered by a sea that was home to invertebrates and fishes. On land, the tree Araucaria grew, and dinosaurs inhabited the state. Southern Georgia remained submerged by shallow seawater into the ensuing Paleogene and Neogene periods of the Cenozoic era. These seas were home to small coral reefs and a variety of other marine invertebrates. By the Pleistocene the state was mostly dry land covered in forests and grasslands home to mammoths and giant ground sloths. Local coal mining activity has a history of serendipitous Carboniferous-aged fossil discoveries. Another major event in Georgian paleontology was a 1963 discovery of Pleistocene fossils in Bartow County. Shark teeth are the Georgia state fossil.
Paleontology in Louisiana refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Louisiana. Outcrops of fossil-bearing sediments and sedimentary rocks within Louisiana are quite rare. In part, this is because Louisiana’s semi-humid climate results in the rapid weathering and erosion of any exposures and the growth of thick vegetation that conceal any fossil-bearing strata. In addition, Holocene alluvial sediments left behind by rivers like the Mississippi, Red, and Ouachita, as well as marsh deposits, cover about 55% of Louisiana and deeply bury local fossiliferous strata.
Paleontology in Missouri refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Missouri. The geologic column of Missouri spans all of geologic history from the Precambrian to present with the exception of the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic. Brachiopods are probably the most common fossils in Missouri.
Paleontology in Minnesota refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Minnesota. The geologic record of Minnesota spans from Precambrian to recent with the exceptions of major gaps including the Silurian period, the interval from the Middle to Upper Devonian to the Cretaceous, and the Cenozoic. During the Precambrian, Minnesota was covered by an ocean where local bacteria ended up forming banded iron formations and stromatolites. During the early part of the Paleozoic era southern Minnesota was covered by a shallow tropical sea that would come to be home to creatures like brachiopods, bryozoans, massive cephalopods, corals, crinoids, graptolites, and trilobites. The sea withdrew from the state during the Silurian, but returned during the Devonian. However, the rest of the Paleozoic is missing from the local rock record. The Triassic is also missing from the local rock record and Jurassic deposits, while present, lack fossils. Another sea entered the state during the Cretaceous period, this one inhabited by creatures like ammonites and sawfish. Duckbilled dinosaurs roamed the land. The Cenozoic period of the ensuing Cenozoic era is also missing from the local rock record, but during the Ice Age evidence points to glacial activity in the state. Woolly mammoths, mastodons, and musk oxen inhabited Minnesota at the time. Local Native Americans interpreted such remains as the bones of the water monster Unktehi. They also told myths about thunder birds that may have been based on Ice Age bird fossils. By the early 19th century, the state's fossil had already attracted the attention of formally trained scientists. Early research included the Cretaceous plant discoveries made by Leo Lesquereux.
Paleontology in Texas refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Texas. Author Marian Murray has remarked that "Texas is as big for fossils as it is for everything else." Some of the most important fossil finds in United States history have come from Texas. Fossils can be found throughout most of the state. The fossil record of Texas spans almost the entire geologic column from Precambrian to Pleistocene. Shark teeth are probably the state's most common fossil. During the early Paleozoic era Texas was covered by a sea that would later be home to creatures like brachiopods, cephalopods, graptolites, and trilobites. Little is known about the state's Devonian and early Carboniferous life. However, evidence indicates that during the late Carboniferous the state was home to marine life, land plants and early reptiles. During the Permian, the seas largely shrank away, but nevertheless coral reefs formed in the state. The rest of Texas was a coastal plain inhabited by early relatives of mammals like Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. During the Triassic, a great river system formed in the state that was inhabited by crocodile-like phytosaurs. Little is known about Jurassic Texas, but there are fossil aquatic invertebrates of this age like ammonites in the state. During the Early Cretaceous local large sauropods and theropods left a great abundance of footprints. Later in the Cretaceous, the state was covered by the Western Interior Seaway and home to creatures like mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and few icthyosaurs. Early Cenozoic Texas still contained areas covered in seawater where invertebrates and sharks lived. On land the state would come to be home to creatures like glyptodonts, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, titanotheres, uintatheres, and dire wolves. Archaeological evidence suggests that local Native Americans knew about local fossils. Formally trained scientists were already investigating the state's fossils by the late 1800s. In 1938, a major dinosaur footprint find occurred near Glen Rose. Pleurocoelus was the Texas state dinosaur from 1997 to 2009, when it was replaced by Paluxysaurus jonesi after the Texan fossils once referred to the former species were reclassified to a new genus.
Paleontology in New Mexico refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of New Mexico. The fossil record of New Mexico is exceptionally complete and spans almost the entire stratigraphic column. More than 3,300 different kinds of fossil organisms have been found in the state. Of these more than 700 of these were new to science and more than 100 of those were type species for new genera. During the early Paleozoic, southern and western New Mexico were submerged by a warm shallow sea that would come to be home to creatures including brachiopods, bryozoans, cartilaginous fishes, corals, graptolites, nautiloids, placoderms, and trilobites. During the Ordovician the state was home to algal reefs up to 300 feet high. During the Carboniferous, a richly vegetated island chain emerged from the local sea. Coral reefs formed in the state's seas while terrestrial regions of the state dried and were home to sand dunes. Local wildlife included Edaphosaurus, Ophiacodon, and Sphenacodon.
The Raymond C. Moore Medal for Paleontology is awarded by the Society for Sedimentary Geology to persons who have made significant contributions in the field which have promoted the science of stratigraphy by research in paleontology and evolution and the use of fossils for interpretations of paleoecology. The award is named after Professor Raymond C. Moore, the American paleontogist who helped to found the society.
Alfred R. ("Al") Loeblich Jr (1914–1994) was an American micropaleontologist. He was married to Helen Niña Tappan Loeblich and the two co-authored a number of important works on the Foraminifera and related organisms.
