Edwin H. Colbert

Edwin Harris Colbert ( born September 28, 1905 in Clarinda, Iowa; † 16 November 2001 in Flagstaff, Arizona) was a noted American vertebrate paleontologist a recognized authority in the field of dinosaur and a prolific researcher and author.

Life

Colbert put his bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska and received the Master and Ph.D. in 1935 from Columbia University. He held, among other things, the position of a curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History and emeritus was the vertebrate paleontology at Columbia University. Following his retirement in 1970 he was curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Among his friends was one of Henry Fairfield Osborn.

Numerous descriptions of new taxa go back to him, including Staurikosaurus, Gaindatherium, and Scutellosaurus. In 1947 he discovered a reference to twelve copies of the small dinosaur Coelophysis Triassic on the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. In the uncovered blocks of him there was in 2006, the student Sterling Nesbitt fossils of Effigia okeeffeae, which belongs to the Poposauroidea. He was also the author of several systematic revisions, such as the phylogeny of the ceratopsians.

His field work in Antarctica 1969/70 resulted in the discovery of Lystrosaurus on this continent support for the theory of continental drift (Fossils of Lystrosaurus were also from the Permian and Triassic of India and South Africa known), and its popularity as well as his books about dinosaurs, paleontology and stratigraphy ( with Marshall Kay ) conducted a generation of scientists and enthusiastic amateurs into his field of research.

Colbert was honored for his achievements as a scientist with numerous awards and honors, including the Romer -Simpson Medal the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, whose honor he was a member (1973). After he and his wife Margaret of Edwin H. and Margaret M. Colbert Award is named, which is awarded by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology for outstanding poster presentations by students.

Works

External links and references

  • Edwin H. and Margaret M. Colbert. Biography of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
  • Anahad O'Connor: E. H. Colbert, 96, This; Wrote Dinosaur Books. Obituary in the New York Times, November 25, 2001
  • Paleontologist
  • Americans
  • Research Fellow of the American Museum of Natural History
  • Born 1905
  • Died in 2001
  • Man
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