Robert M. Sullivan

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Robert M. Sullivan in office holding a pachycephalosaurid skull. Prof. Pachy.jpg
Robert M. Sullivan in office holding a pachycephalosaurid skull.

Robert Michael "Bob" Sullivan (born August 4, 1951) is a vertebrate paleontologist, noted for his work on fossil lizards and dinosaurs.

Contents

Sullivan discovered the second and most complete skull of the hadrosaurid dinosaur, Parasaurophus tubicen, [1] and skulls of the ankylosaurids Nodocephalosaurus kirtlandensis and Ziapelta sanjuanensis. He also made contributions to Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunas from the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, [2] including establishing the Kirtlandian land vertebrate "age" for a time interval between the Judithian and younger Edmontonian "ages".

Sullivan is also noted for his work on pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs, and was an early vocal critic of the asteroid impact theory as the cause for dinosaur extinction. [3]

Early life

Born in Queens, New York, to parents Robert F. Sullivan and Marian E. Sullivan, Sullivan lived in Tarrytown, New York (1951-1953) and moved to Fairfield, Connecticut in early 1953. He had two younger brothers. Later, he lived in Trumbull, Connecticut, until college in the fall of 1969.

Robert grew up reading natural history books, including E. H. Colbert's (1961) Dinosaurs: Their discovery and their world, which fueled his fascination with dinosaurs at a very early age. He became an avid collector of butterflies, rocks, minerals and fossils, but it was his love for prehistoric animals that would consume his professional career.

On occasion, Sullivan's father would drop him off at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, where he would spend hours in the dinosaur gallery viewing the various fossil vertebrates. His grandmother was especially supportive of his desire to become a paleontologist and drove him to a well-known Devonian roadside outcrop in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where he would spend hours collecting fossil bryozoans, rugose corals and brachiopods. As a teenager he and a friend constructed a natural history "museum" and planetarium in the basement of his friend's house. [4]

Academic life

Sullivan attended St. Joseph's Boys High School in Trumbull from 1964 to 1965 and then the University of New Mexico where he received his B.A. in Geology in 1973. Upon graduation, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where he commenced a graduate program in geology and vertebrate paleontology.

The summer of 1973 Sullivan worked as a field paleontologist near Crawford, Nebraska, for the University of Nebraska State Museum, and found a partial skull and skeleton of a fossil lizard that would alter his scientific pursuits. In 1974, he left graduate school and moved to San Francisco where he landed a job as a lab technician for BP Alaska, Inc. A year later, he moved to San Diego to study the fossil lizard Glyptosaurus under the direction of Richard Dean Estes, the subject of his masters thesis which was published in 1979. [5]

Sullivan received his M.S. in Vertebrate Paleontology (Special Major) at San Diego State University in 1978 and graduated with a Ph.D. in Geology from Michigan State University under the tutelage of J. Alan Holman in 1980.

Professional life

Upon graduation, Sullivan worked for several oil companies in Denver in the early 1980s and then taught college in Alabama and subsequently at various colleges and universities in California, including the University of California-Riverside. He served as an NSF curatorial assistant in the late 1980s and later as collection manager in the Department of Herpetology of the San Diego Natural History Museum (1990-1992).

At the end of 1992 Sullivan became the Senior Curator of Paleontology and Geology at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he stayed until his retirement in 2012.

San Juan Basin fieldwork

In the mid 1980s, Sullivan spent time working in the Paleocene Nacimiento Formation looking for fossil lizards, with little luck, and occasionally would wander down section into the Upper Cretaceous rocks of the San Juan Basin. He began intensive fieldwork in the Upper Cretaceous in 1995 with occasional interruptions, spending numerous summers collecting fossil vertebrates from the Fruitland, Kirtland and Ojo Alamo (Naashoibito Member) formations. This fieldwork, which spanned over two decades, resulted in numerous unique and significant discoveries, including the recovery of New Mexico's first pterosaur Navajodactylus boerei, along with many new dinosaur species.

Grants received and other affiliations

Sullivan has been the recipient of grants from Sigma XI (1974), the National Science Foundation (1984), the Dinosaur Society (1996) and the Jurassic Foundation (1999). Served as Program Officer, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (1991 - 1993)

Sullivan held Research Associate positions with the University of Colorado (1980 - 1982), San Diego Natural History Museum (1987 - 1990), Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (1984 - 1992), Carnegie Museum of Natural History (1993 - present) and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (1998 - present).

Selected major publications

Related Research Articles

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

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

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

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

Ahshislepelta is a monospecific genus of ankylosaur dinosaur from New Mexico that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Hunter Wash Member of the Kirtland Formation. The type and only species, Ahshislepelta minor, is known only from an incomplete postcranial skeleton of a small subadult or adult individual. It was named in 2011 by Michael Burns and Robert M. Sullivan. Based on the size of the humerus, Ahshislepelta is larger than Pinacosaurus mephistocephalus but smaller than Talarurus and Pinacosaurus grangeri.

Melvius is a genus of vidalamiin amiid fish from the Late Cretaceous. The type species, Melvius thomasi, was described by Bryant in 1987 from Hell Creek Formation. A second species Melvius chauliodous, was named and described by Hall and Wolburg in 1989 from Kirtland Formation, and it is now considered to be one of the index taxa of the Kirtlandian land-vertebrate age. Both species of Melvius were very large at its size. A vertebral remain of M. thomasi would belongs to fish with standard length of 161 cm (5.28 ft), and there are some specimens exceeds height of that vertebra. Total length of this species would be at least 193–205 cm (6.33–6.73 ft). However, M. thomasi would be a “dwarf” compared to M. chauliodous, a specimen of M. chauliodous with abdominal centra which is 6.57 cm (2.59 in) wide would indicate standard length over 2 m (6.6 ft), and there is even larger abdominal centra which is 7.3 cm (2.9 in) wide.

<i>Ziapelta</i> Genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period

Ziapelta is an extinct genus of ankylosaurid. Its fossils have been found in the Hunter Wash and De-na-zin members of the Kirtland Formation of Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) New Mexico. It was named in 2014, in a research paper led by ankylosaur researcher Victoria Arbour. There is a single species in the genus, Ziapelta sanjuanensis. The genus is named after the Zia sun symbol, a stylized sun with four groups of rays, having religious significance to the Zia people of New Mexico, and the iconic symbol on the state flag of New Mexico, and pelta (Latin), a small shield, in reference to the osteoderms found on all ankylosaurids. The specific name is in reference to San Juan County and the San Juan basin, where the fossils were found. Multiple specimens have been described to date, though the fossils are mostly from the front part of the animal. Its closest relative appears to be either Scolosaurus or Nodocephalosaurus, depending on what cladistic model is used.

References

  1. Dino Discovery N.M. Scientists Find Phenomenal Fossil -Albuquerque Sunday Journal, August 27, 1995
  2. Lucas, Spencer (2014). Dinosaur Century. Albuquerque, New Mexico 87104: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. pp. 47, 52. ISBN   978-0-615-93248-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. Extinction by asteroid a rocky theory, he says -Philadelphia Daily News, April 21, 1998, page 36.
  4. Cellar Project Grows into Science Museum -Bridgeport Sunday Post, June 15, 1965, front page.
  5. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 163(1):1-72.